Cold Skies, Keen Perils
by Literary Vagrant
Summary: Somewhere a man dies, and in the same moment Henry Marigold opens his eyes for the first time. Welcome to Remnant, stranger, and the glorious Kingdom of Atlas. A quiet life is not in the cards, whatever you might wish - and those that don't lean into Fate get dragged kicking and screaming by it. (RWBY SI, into a minor but canon character.)
1. Prologue

I couldn't actually remember the process of being born, and that much I thanked whatever entity had sent me here for. Being an infant was bad enough. I could hardly concentrate on anything, or see what was around me for that matter. My entire body felt thin and raw, and the indignities of having no control over my bodily functions were best not mentioned. At least, since I had all the mental focus of a particularly dim goldfish, I never managed to think about how traumatizing this all was for more than a few seconds at a time. It was a blessing in disguise that my perception of time was screwed, since it only felt like half an eternity before I was no longer a squalling wreck instead of a full one. Joy. By the time I managed to be sure the people I saw pass and play with me were actually speaking words, I also became sure they weren't speaking any language I'd ever heard of. Or was it just that all language felt like gibberish to babies? A nice woman, probably my mother since I saw her all the time, spoke to me in a soothing voice all the time and saw to it I was fed with a bottle. Liquid diet, huh. Another thing to sort in the 'forget as soon as possible' column.

Actually learning to speak was difficult - my throat was being very difficult about it - but pointing games with images began to establish my vocabulary. Then one day it wasn't a book that was put in front of me but what appeared to be an _actual fucking hologram_ and it sunk in we might not be in Kansas anymore, Toto. Or at least not when I'd died, which I could still remember. Not as well as I thought I had before, though, when everything had been swimming blurs. I remembered a family, but dimly. A house, an apartment and so many things I'd spent my hours on. But I couldn't quite put a name to any of it, no my parents or my school or the first girl I'd kissed. Gods, not even the city I was from much less the country. A vague but lingering sense of loss came over me at that, and I heard voices I could almost understand now speak. Something about being tired? Oh goddamnit not the cradle. The moving shapes over it were nowhere as entertaining as the voices seemed to think they were, either. Looking at them too long kind of gave me a headache, though it was all… wooly.

When I finally understood the words, I learned I was a little before two years old. I also learned that the nice lady, Anabelle, was not my mother but my nurse. She was quite affectionate, though, and that was how I learned my name was Henry, Henry Marigold. My actual mother, who I learned to recognize from short and infrequent visits, wasn't the touchy-feely type apparently. I learned why when I heard servants - there were servants around, yes, so apparently I'd been born pretty rich - gossip about her being in grief. Over my father, apparently, which explained why I'd never caught sight of him. Something about him being lost in a plane crash, though they kept calling that grim for some reason. The context seemed to imply an attack, but they never actually said that outright so maybe some sort of sabotage? Something to sort out when motor functions were fully back under control. Walking was a bit hazardous at the moment, since my legs were basically chubby flesh marshmallows.

Regardless, there'd not been a single mention of a continent or country I could remember. This place was called Atlas, apparently, though we were a little outside the city. Why? Oh, this was called _Marigold House_. It wasn't just a house, it was an estate. Fancy. I revised the estimate of rich to wealthy because estates weren't things people bought on a mortgage, as a rule. Now that I had a modicum of spatial awareness back I noticed I was moved between my bedroom and a playroom but never really taken anywhere else, and from what I could glimpse over the shoulders of adults carrying me those rooms were in a little-frequented part of the house. I could more than get by on the language, but I was still a useless illiterate ball of chub so I resorted to cuteness and tantrums to get people to read children's books to me. Not exactly the goddamn Odyssey, but if I had to be shown a chicken to know how to spell the word chicken I'd deal with it. The insistence of my nurse to make the noises along the words was appreciate on a theoretical level, but pretty distracting on a practical one. My belly kept giggling when she did, since it was a filthy traitor.

I made a point of learning my mother's name - Bailey Marigold - and calling her mama the next time she visited, and that got her to come a little more often for a month but it didn't stick. She had a demanding job, apparently, CEO of the 'Marigold Company'. A family enterprise, I assumed. She was never around for more than an hour at a time, and visits were often cut short by calls. The device that got those calls, though, got my attention more than Mother. People called it a Scroll, and it seemed similar to a smartphone. Except for the part where it had a translucent extendable screen with image capacity while remaining no larger than an iPhone when put together. An iPhone that could be split in two, on top of it. Technology here in 'Atlas' seemed to be a cut above the Old World - what I'd taken to calling Earth, since I didn't always remember that name on first try. By the age of three I could get around like I wasn't a bumbling drunk, so I began to investigate. It, uh, turned out harder than I thought. A chihuahua could have outrun me if it gave it a good try, and I was never really alone.

I did eventually get a closer look at a lamp, and that was when I got my first large surprise. It didn't run on electricity - it wasn't plugged into a wall at all. Battery? But that would be horribly wasteful. I began digging at the sealed opening in the back when goddamn Anabelle caught me before I could get a proper look. She actually chewed me out, for literally the first time I could remember. Apparently the lamp ran on something called Dust, and messing with it was a Bad Idea. Well, whatever. Thanks for the save, Belle, but I'm not the one who put a lamp running on Powercell Dynamite at child height. A + child-raising there, and I wasn't saying that just because she put me back in the crib and I was bitter about it. I asked question about, making sure not to sound too articulate, and I learned that Dust apparently made everything in Atlas work. It came from the ground, which I figured out meant mining. Some sort of mineral deposit. It was also used for the loud things that made the monsters go away? That sounded like guns. Powered by a universal energy source. What the fuck was this place?

Story time, which was now mandatory tradition, only brought more questions. The protagonists were almost always 'Huntsmen' or 'Huntresses', basically heroes with superpowers, except the servants spoke of them during the day as if they were a fact of daily life. There was even mention of a school where they learned to be Huntsmen, whatever that meant. Those living demigods supposedly used something called Aura, which was an energy field that was also a soul, maybe? It also made them pretty much untouchable until it was 'spent', because apparently the laws of physics had taken one good look at this place and then run away screaming. They also got a special personal soul power called a Semblance, which could be anything. Bullshit. I called bullshit on that one. Look, I'd buy that apparently Dust came in crystals and you could use them to do fucking magic like this was the universe's most lethal LARP session. But people reversing gravity or turning into birds? There was a line of credulity to be drawn.

I needed answers, from an at least semi-trustworthy source. I'd need to get my hands on a Scroll, or one of those minimalistic computer terminals I'd glimpsed. Soon. It was bedtime, and apparently being three years old was a _lot_ more exhausting than it looked because I was basically falling asleep already.


	2. Chapter 1

At the age of five I got my hands on a Scroll for the first time, and that was when I actually began to learn about where I'd been… reincarnated, for lack of a better term. The name of this world was Remnant, which I would have called overly dramatic if not for the fact that the place was infested with monsters called the Grimm. That name finally solved the mystey of what had offed dear old dad, another loose end settled. Trying to learn more about what those _were_ exactly either led to fairy tales or publically available scientific articles, neither of which were all that helpful. One thing was clear, though: humanity was not the dominant species in Remnant. As far back as records went it had been contained to small settlement areas protected by natural features, and though there'd been some successes in claiming other lands from the Grimm history was filled with 'nations' who'd lasted for just a few decades before being overrun. The only four stable entities were the four 'kingdoms', though as far as I could tell the monarchy part was purely decorative. Every one of those nations had a 'Council' in charge instead of a king or queen, and to my horror those were pretty much oligarchies with a very thin fig leaf over them.

How bad it actually was varied from kingdom to kingdom. Atlas, where I'd been born, ran somewhere in the middle. It had been pretty militaristic prior to a war only referred to as the 'Great War' and back then it was ruled like your run-of-the-mill dictatorship, but it'd been forced to mellow out after losing that war. Now there was a semblance of democracy, with two-thirds of the sitting Council members being appointed by popular vote and the last third appointed by King Fedorian of Atlas. Said king was a political nonentity, so practically speaking those appointments were decided by the military - which always put their own in the seats. On the surface it was relatively democratic, but checking on the names of current Council members I saw not one of them didn't have a last name that wasn't on the list of the hundred richest families in Atlas. The part that had me wary was that the Council wasn't just the legislative body, it was also the executive and it decided the judge nominations. Separation of powers hadn't made it to Remnant, looked like.

Considering a little over a hundred years Atlas had been practicing slavery, I supposed I was lucky there was even the pretense of fair rule.

The other kingdoms ran from the most liberal, which was Vale, to Mistral. By far the worst of the lot. The wealthy there actually started their own settlements without government sanction whenever they wanted and their Council's authority was mostly theoretical outside the walls of the city of Mistral itself. Everything I found on Vacuo hinted that it was basically a shitshow with no central authority, more a loosely-affiliated pack of settlements than an actual nation, but whether that was just Atlas sources being condescending about it I couldn't be sure. Still, considering Mistral and Atlas used to have Dust mines in Vacuo territory built there with impunity there must have been some truth to the second-rate power label it got. The Kingdom of Vale's own Council was entirely elected and they seemed to have been the most 'progressive' force in Remnant for a few centuries, but I was wary of that version of history. They'd won the Great War, after all, and built the Huntsman Academies in every other kingdom. They had a lot of clout, even now, and history was always written by the victors. I doubted they'd survived this long on a death world without accumulating a few skeletons in the closet.

The closest thing to a fifth kingdom was Menagerie, and with that came the second great surprise. Humanity was not the dominant species of Remnant, and apparently wasn't the only humanoid species either. The Faunus, as they were called, were basically humans with animal parts and occasionally better senses. Trying to find out more about them was opening an ugly can of worms: I'd been surprised at the lack of racism considering skin colour ran the full spectrum on Remnant, but now I knew why. It'd been reserved for the Faunus, and the amount of racial slurs I learned in a five-minute crawl through the Network was staggering. It was a real ugly situation, and I wasn't surprised to learn there'd been a war over Faunus rights decades before I was born. Apparently humans had tried to evict Faunus populations in the kingdoms and resettled them forcefully on Menagerie, which back then was basically an empty island surrounded by monsters. Lovely. Still, two large wars over a single century, while monsters waited just outside the gates? It was like everyone was _trying_ to get wiped out.

I spent most of my fifth year slipping past my nanny and trying to get at either terminals or Scrolls, with mixed successed. Anabelle got wise to me pretty quickly, and though she couldn't discipline me she _could_ bring it up to my mother. That saw me called to Mother's solar one evening, in the part of the mansion that was kept separate by keycard locks. The inside was spacious and though the temperature was warm the style of it was very modern-minimalist. shining white surfaces, metal chairs and large bay windows overlooking the Atlas skyline. The only living touch there was the holographic picture frames on her desk: one of me, taken a year ago, and another of my smiling parents when they'd been at least a decade younger. Bailey Marigold, CEO of Marigold Company, looked down at me from behind her desk with what looked like reluctant amusement.

"Sit, Henry," she said, pointing at the chair across her desk.

I did and though I had memories of being a grown man, however vague they now were, I still squirmed at bit under that steady stare.

"I'm told you're giving Anabelle quite a bit of trouble," she said.

"I'm just reading things," I told her honestly.

"Your room is furnished with every prize-winning children's book of the last five years, sweetheart," Mother noted.

"If I have to look at another page telling me the sounds animals make, I am going to jump out a window," I replied bluntly. "I don't care if there's sound effects - that actually makes it feel kind of condescending, to be honest."

"Then I'll see about getting you more advanced reading materials," she said. "But this ends now, Henry. You can't be taking people's Scrolls or getting into terminals. You're too young, there are things on the Network you can't understand yet."

"I'm doing well in my lessons," I tried.

"It's not about lessons, dear," she sighed. "Children aren't ready for the things on the Network."

If I didn't do anything, I knew, I'd be getting a minder. Someone who actively tried to keep me ignorant, and I couldn't have that when there was still so much I didn't even know. Like Semblances, how the hell did that even work? Soul superpowers seemed a little too thin of an explanation. My fingers clenched. I needed to give her a reason to let me push ahead, and that meant revealing a few cards I would have rather kept in hand.

"I can do multiplications," I said. "Some algebra. I've read a Mistral epic with the original wording. Mother, I can do _more_."

Pale brown eyes studied me cooly. She didn't call me a liar, not that I'd expected her to. She already knew I was different from other children.

"Show me," Bailey Marigold said.

She took her Scroll from the surface of the desk and fingers danced across the translucent surface. She left it open and set it down before me. 12 x 12 = , the surface read.

"One hundred forty four," I replied without even touching it.

She blinked, then took back the Scroll and replaced the multiplication with a basic solve for X problem. My algebra was a little rusty, admittedly, but this was basic stuff. A minute later the solution was in front of her. She drummed her fingers on the metallic desk.

"A Mistral epic?" she finally said.

"The Atlesian stuff is really dry," I said. "I was learning about why and how that led to the Great War, when Anabelle took away my Scroll yesterday."

"It was our butler's Scroll, Henry," she sighed. "And now it is codelocked, so you won't be getting into it again."

"So get me one of my own. I learn quickly," I said. "And I'm a little past the sounds cows make. Shutting me out of the Network is just slowing me down."

"Your father always said your grandfather Taget was precocious," Mother mused, "But somehow I doubt he was _this_ precocious. I'd believe you found your Semblance, if your Aura was awakened."

"I just want to learn things," I said. "That's not bad, is it?"

"Your learning the wrongs thing is what I'm worried of," she said. "Regardless of the rest, your behaviour has been unacceptable. You'll touch no Scroll for a week."

I winced at the horrid boredom awaiting me, but the last part was promising.

"And after?" I asked.

"I will not waste a prodigy," Mother sighed. "I'll have the technicians at the company install shackles on a Scroll. You can have it after your punishment is over."

Suddenly much less promising.

"Shackles?" I said.

"You'll have no access to parts of the Network I deem unacceptable for a child your age," she said. "And since your lessons appear to bore you, we'll have to remedy that. I'll be arranging for a professional tutor to visit and test how ahead of your peers you are."

That, I thought, was going to be tricky. I'd have to make some waves to justify Scroll privileges, but not too many. There was only so precocious it was believable for a kid to be. On the other hand, if I could get out of elementary school entirely I was more than willing to bend the rule a bit. I nodded, since it was expected of me, and got to my feet. Looked like family time was over for the night, so I headed for the door.

"Henry," Mother said suddenly, and I turned to face her. "I _am_ proud of you."

I'd known this woman for barely five years, but how much did I owe to her? It meant something she'd say that, however unearned.

"You are the future of the Marigold Company," she said. "I have great expectations for you."

I nodded again, and turned so she wouldn't see my grimaced. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this life, but I was pretty sure it didn't involved become an executive in a business I knew next to nothing about.

Two important things happened, before I turned six years old. The first was that I got my own Scroll, though it was a lot more shackled than I would have preferred. Gone was access to public forums, most news and more or less any form of media flagged for adults. I could still access histories, though, and most written entertainment. It was pretty clear what Mother actually wanted me to read, though: there were two folders inside the local memory of the Scroll, along with a note that the time I spent accessing them would be logged on her own system. The first folder was titled System Programming, the second Hardware Architecture. Both folders were filled with increasingly harder educational programs, with automated tests at the end of every one unlocking access to the next. Within moments of finding those I closed the folders and went on the Network to find out what Marigold Company actually did, and to my utter lack of surprise that was essentially it. Electronics and platform programming on a large scale, with the Atlas military even awarding some much-publicized contracts. Factories in Mantle handled production, while research and coding was based in Atlas.

Lovely. I'd been born straight into the military-industrial complex.

The second important thing was the day I spent in a room with a serious-looking man with a military buzzcut, going through a battery of tests. A former teacher at Atlas Academy, he'd been brought in at great expense so that whatever credentials I got from the tests would be recognized by international standards. I'd worried about looking too advanced, before, but I found that had been slightly arrogant of me. In mathematics and general science I was much ahead of the curve, but the rest? I was a pretty decent writer, but the social sciences I remembered were entirely irrelevant to Remnant. I came out of that exhausting day certified for the first four grades of elementary school, but Geography, History and Dust Studies fucked me out of an early graduation. I later learned the teacher had recommended against my going to school with other children, advocating for tutoring in my weak areas instead. Be blessed, nameless stranger, for the unpleasantness you spared me through your words. May you reincarnate in Earth when you die, which does have atomic bombs but at least no Grimm.

And just like that I officially became home-schooled. It was apparently fairly common for the wealthy of Atlas to do so with their children, so it didn't raise any eyebrows with Mother's colleagues. My schedule was fairly loose, to my pleasure. Mornings were spent with tutors, once more former professionals who could prepare me for the standardized Atlas graduation tests, but the afternoons were mine. Mother was pleased enough by my test results she had a terminal installed in my bedroom, though it wasn't connected to the Network. After six months of this life, though, I began to get restless. There was only so much education reading I could do without going mad, even if reading about Remnant's history was like reading a fantasy book. I needed to keep my hands busy with something, and if I could both do that and get on my mother's good side then all the better - which meant the two folders in my Scroll. Coding language in Remnant was actually fairly simplistic compared to even what little I'd learned in my last life, but those memories were so hazy they weren't much help practically speaking.

The idea came to me while I was idly thumbing through what music had been made available to me on my Scroll - all classical, which I felt might have been a joke at my expense. All the great tech companies where I came from didn't exist, on Remnant. I wasn't exactly a genius, but I _could_ shamelessly plunder the genius of others. iTunes? No, there was already stuff like it, and Skype as well. An afternoon of research, though, told me that there was no Remnant Facebook. The smile I made at that probably seemed more cute than predatory on a five year old child's face.

Two weeks later, I was seriously debating tearing out my hair. Knowing what the Facebook interface looked like did not apparently translate to intimate knowledge of how the platform worked. Calling what I'd done a failure would have been overly kind. I kept at it another week out of sheer obstinacy before giving it up. All right, so it was a little out of my league. For now. I just needed to start with something easier. Like Pong. How hard could _Pong_ possibly be? A few days of trial and error later, combined with some cribbing off the Network, and I had a pastel-coloured ripoff of the fossil ancestor of video games looking back at me. Which, not gonna lie, felt good. It would have felt better if actual Scroll games widely available weren't like three generations past it, but I'd take what I could get. It was tempting to just build off the template and add frills, but instead I turned back to the folders. The Hardware stuff I wasn't all that interested in, so it lagged behind, but the Programming I tore into. By the time I was six I was intimately familiar with the merry little jingle that sounded when a test was successfully passed.

I'd hoped that for my birthday I'd get a few shackles lifted off my Scroll, but the present I got was entirely different. Plopped down in front of mother in her solar again, I was informed that I was now old enough for my self-defence lessons to begin.

"Aren't those for Huntsmen?" I asked. "I thought you wanted me to work for the Company when I grow up."

"Atlas is one of the safest cities in Remnant," Mother said. "But even here, there are dangers. You are talented, Henry, and talent attracts attention. Not all of it good."

I frowned.

"Is the competition really that cutthroat?" I asked.

She smiled thinly, her eyes just like the ones I saw in the mirror every morning.

"There are unpleasant undercurrents, nowadays," she said. "The Faunus are growing unruly, and the White Fang organizes strikes that are increasingly volatile. The Council has kept them under control for now, but I fear the situation may escalate."

The White Fang, huh. I'd read a bit about them, though I was limited in what I could find. It was a Faunus rights group established after the revolution, based in Menagerie but active in all the kingdoms. Mostly they tried to force salarial equity with strikes and boycotts, which was honestly quite admirable. I got the impression they hadn't been all that successful, though. _And if peaceful protest doesn't work, you get people picking up weapons._ I grimaced. The mansion was basically a fortress and it wasn't like I ever left, but it was still part of the city. If things got really bad we'd still be affected. I didn't question the lessons any further after that.

Considering Remnant had actual superheroes with magic powers running around shooting with mechanically-shifting weapons, I'd expected my lessons to involved some kind of fancy martial arts. What I got instead was a more thorough version of your average self-defence seminar, with entire lessons about recognizing threats and abductors. I was only two months in I realized this was basically VIP training. I wasn't expected to actually fight, just avoid getting hurt and hide behind the nearest security guards. A bit of a letdown, but since I was about as interested in picking a fight as just straight-up shooting myself in the foot I didn't truly mind. Limited lessons meant it didn't take up much of my time, and I was more interested in my little projects that the technicalities of breaking a chokehold. I'd get classes on how to handle a gun when I was holder, I was told, but until then I should just keep up with the exercises I'd been taught. Fine by me.

It was a quiet life I'd landed myself in, and it went by pleasantly. I occasionally tinkered with Project Facebook Ripoff again, but it was on the backburner until I had the skills to make a serious attempt - which would take more than a few months, the way I saw it. My splendid isolation came to a halt right after my seventh birthday, when I was officially deemed old and well-mannered enough to be introduced to polite company. At first that meant I was allowed to sit at the table with adults at dinner, though not when we had guests. Then I graduated to guests, with strict instructions to be demure and keep my mouth shut unless spoken to. I got the impression Mother was testing the waters, to see if it was possible for her to use me as bragging rights without my putting my foot on my mouth. I was tempted to sink the boat just to avoid this whole chore, but I suspected there would be _consequences_ to that. Instead I smiled and and answered questions about my lessons and made myself look like a good little prodigy who had no idea seven-year-olds did not usual program shitty Pong knockoffs. Seeing the eyes of the company executives Mother was entertaining was honestly a little creepy.

Society guests were usually skeptical, but I trotted out the game for their perusal and Bailey Marigold got the bragging rights she was so clearly after. She smiled at me with cold satisfaction, after the first time, and the morning after I found I'd gained access to full news again. Carrot and the stick, huh. I could work with that. I only really got what she was after when she sent for me one evening and told me that in a week we'd be going to Schnee Manor for dinner.


	3. Chapter 2

There wasn't really such a thing as old money, in the Kingdom of Atlas. Back when the kingdom had still been called Mantle the power and wealth had been centered in the city of the same name, but nowadays it was all mines and factories. The big names of the current kingdom had all emerged after the Great War, when Atlas became the centre of innovation and technology of Remnant. The City of Dreams, it was nicknamed. But the Great War hadn't even been eighty years ago, so the wealthy of now hadn't been wealthy for centuries like they were in Mistral. The distinction was drawn mostly drawn between big money and the rest, and there was nobody in any business that was bigger money than the Schnees. Marigold Company was wealthy and well-connected, but it hadn't quite broken into the rarefied circle of the moves and shakers of Atlas. Jacques Schnee, current CEO of the Schnee Dust Company, was definitely one of those. Though he had a surprisingly small footprint on the Network, mostly pictures taken at charities and scholarships, the Schnee snowflake logo was everywhere in Atlas.

There was talk the man might get on the Council, in the future. Though it was against unspoken custom for an acting CEO to hold a seat, his eldest daughter was already in Atlas Academy and it was expected she might take his place when she was of age while he made a run for a seat. He'd get elected, I had no doubt. All of Remnant ran on Dust and he headed the largest company mining and refining the substance. If the SDC closed shop tomorrow, there wasn't a kingdom in Remnant that would not dip into recession. That was a _lot_ of leverage. That was probably why Mother was doing the closest thing to fussing over me she had it in her to do, which mostly involved telling the help to fix my bowtie. Yeah, bowtie. All red and shiny over my button-up shirt. Hadn't been sold on the accessory, but I knew better than to put myself in Bailey Marigold's crosshairs when she had that look on her face.

"You will behave yourself," she told me.

"Cross my heart," I said, making an effort not to sound sarcastic.

"This is an important evening for us," Mother said. "Business ties with the SDC would open a lot of doors for the company. We might no longer have to participate in public bids over military contracts."

That sounded a lot like corruption, but given that I was seven years old I kept my mouth shut. Atlas was run the way it was run, there was nothing I could do about it. All I needed to do was keep my head down and find something a nice little quiet corner to live out my life in. I stayed silent on the ride, mostly because I was in awe over the fact that I was in an actual real-life _airship_. With a stylized marigold flower logo stamped onto the side it was clearly a company vehicle, but still. This wasn't a helicopter or a jet, it was some sort of Dust-powered reactor plane straight out of a science-fiction movie. Remnant might be full of monsters and backwards in a lot of ways, but there was something to be said for how _awesome_ Dust technology actually was. We landed on a private airstrip after too short a trip, and I got my first good look at Schnee Manor. Calling it massive was an understatement, and was that _marble_? I hadn't even known that existed in this world, and it must cost a fortune. As the ramp lowered, I stayed behind Mother and we found a man awaiting us.

Not Jacques Schnee, I immediately knew. Didn't look like the pictures. Wearing a tailored vest, the balding man bowed the slightest bit.

"Welcome to Schnee Manor, Ms Marigold," he said. "I am Klein, butler to the estate."

Sounded friendly, though I supposed in his trade that was something you cultivated. He glanced at me as I followed Mother down.

"You must be young Henry," he smiled. "Shall we go inside? I would not keep guests out in the cold."

I had a coat on, over my horrid little suit and bowtie, so I actually wouldn't have minded a longer look around. I'd lived up north, in the Old World, winter was nothing new to me.

"That would be much appreciated," Mother said.

She looked rather fancy, in her green and gold reception gown covered by a fur coat. Her matching golden gloves were made more for ballrooms than the elements, though, so I didn't begrudge her the hurry. The butler led us through a beautiful wintry courtyard and two sets of glass doors until we reached the inside, where staff came to divest us of our coats. The inside of the manor was as ridiculously ornate as the outside, the floors polished so perfectly they were like mirrors and the tall arc of the ceiling taller than two people standing atop each other. I was engrossed enough in looking around I missed the approach of our host, and only noticed when he greeted Mother.

"Bailey Marigold," Jacques Schnee said, smiling affably. "Radiant as ever."

"Jacques Schnee," Mother replied just as smilingly. "I must compliment you on your beautiful home."

"Wealth does have its privileges," he laughed.

My mother laughed with him, though there'd been nothing particularly funny about his words. Ah the wonders of high society, where one was expected to be delighted no matter how trite the conversation actually was. One of the most powerful men in the world turned his eyes to me, and I wiped any trace of that thought from my face.

"Henry, I believe," he said. "I've heard you have an interest in company business. Quite accomplished for one so young."

I'd be a lot more worried about the head of the SDC knowing who I was if there was any real interest in his eyes. There wasn't. This was the talk of someone who'd read a report about the Marigolds and picked my 'interest' as an agreeable conversation topic.

"I enjoy learning," I smiled.

That should be safe enough. The man chuckled.

"Knowledge is best sought for a practical purpose, young man," he said. "We've quite enough academics, always begging for more funding."

"Theoretical advances of no direct application are usually needed before a technological leap can be achieved," someone said, and to my horror it was me.

Shit. I should not have done that. This man might as well have 'Danger: Do Not Piss Off' tattooed on his forehead. Jacques' brows rose slightly.

"Quite right," he said. "You're quite a precocious sort, aren't you?"

That, I thought, did not sound like a compliment.

"Come, Bailey - may I call you Bailey?" he smoothly continued.

"Of course," Mother said.

"Then you must call me Jacques," he said. "Let me introduce you to the family. My daughter Winter could not divest herself or her studies at Atlas, but Weiss is of an age with your boy and my wife is _dying_ to meet you."

I very, very carefully kept my mouth shut and followed behind my mother. If I was lucky, I might even make it through the rest of the night without forcing my foot through my closed lips. What followed was a whirlwind of luxury in white and blue, punctuated by meeting the flock of impossibly white-haired Schnees in a great hall. Jacques himself was black-haired, though with pale strands, but both his wife and daughter had hair white as snow. It was unreal to see, but in a world where people were born with the ability to have superpowers unlocked I suspected anyone trying to look at the human genome would just see God giving them the finger through a microscope. The adults had busied themselves in polite conversation - nothing about business that I heard, that'd likely come after dinner - and a bottle of wine was opened for their enjoyment. Mother Schnee, whose name I had not caught, was the first to claim a glass. Must have been good stuff. As the grown-ups started their social waltz, I found myself ushered into a sideroom by the butler Klein with the second Schnee daughter. We were, I supposed, to entertain ourselves until dinner while the adults were busy.

Lovely.

I eyed Weiss Schnee from the corner of my eye. Taller than me, though I remembered reading somewhere that girls got their growth spurt earlier. Long white hair was kept in some sort of braided ponytail with bangs, and she wore a blue skirt with a white blouse and matching blue ribbon. She was also seven, and apparently as much at loss as I was about what were actually supposed to _do_ now.

"I'm feeling the urge to introduce myself again, but we've covered those grounds," I said.

"I _did_ hear the first time," she said.

Was that a hint of tartness to her tone? My lips tugged into something close to a smile. Well, at least she had personality. Wandering around with a Perfect Society Lady in miniature would have been pretty boring.

"Henry Marigold," I said, offering my hand.

She stared at me, then her eyes narrowed.

"You are teasing me," she said.

"I would never," I said, smile broadening.

Weiss sighed, which was pretty cute on white-haired little brat.

"Could I interest you in a tour of the manor?" she proposed.

"It's a lot of manor," I mused. "Would we even be done in time for dinner?"

"Of course we-" she paused, eyes narrowing again. "Yes or no, Marigold?"

"I did enjoy having a look at the courtyard coming in," I said. "It was pretty amazing."

She puffed up with pride.

"Schnees tolerate nothing but the very best," she announced, clearly quoting what I assumed to be her father.

I raised an eyebrow silently but didn't comment.

"We can pass by the courtyard," she allowed in a magnanimous concession. "I like it as well."

Much as I'd joked about there being too much manor to see in a single visit, I'd not been entirely wrong. The place was a labyrinth of pristine and shining rooms, large windows everywhere. Considering the weather in Atlas it must cost a fortune to keep warm, but if there was a family in Remnant that could afford Dust heating it was the bloody Schnees. While I wouldn't say Weiss warmed to my presence in her home, she did thaw a bit - and thawing, it seemed, led to quite a bit of conversation. I got a feeling she was in the same boat as me, with not a lot of people around who weren't on the family payroll.

"And this is the piano Father bought me," she said. "I began lessons last year."

It was a nice piece, I saw, and clearly brand new.

"Are you any good?" I asked.

"Of course," she huffed. "I'd show you, but Whitley was put to sleep down the hall. We're not supposed to be in this wing."

"Weiss Schnee, the rebel," I teased.

"I would be remiss of me as a host to provide a bad tour," she said, but she sounded a little guilty. "Still, we should go."

I followed her back into the corridor and she cleared her throat.

"Do you play an instrument?" she asked.

"I don't have the ear for it," I said.

Or at least I hadn't in my last life, which has been a disappointment. I'd always loved the idea of playing the violin, though I'd been godawful at it.

"I suppose if I have a hobby it's programming," I said.

"Are _you_ any good at it?" she said, a little haughtily.

She was actually pretty funny, for a seven year old. I grinned.

"I made a game," I said. "It's on my Scroll, if you want to have a look."

It was subtle, but I saw her breathe in.

"Well, I wouldn't want to offend by refusing," she said.

Her eyes were a little too eager for that to have come out as casual as she obviously wanted it to.

"You're not allowed video games," I guessed.

She flushed. On skin as pale as hers, it was luminescent.

"Father says they are not entertainment befitting of a Schnee," she admitted.

Hadn't the man married into the family? Weird hill to make a stand on, considering that, though I supposed video games weren't the best thing for a kid so he wasn't wrong either. Rot growing brains and all that.

"But if it was just a demonstration of something a guest made," Weiss said hopefully. "Surely it would be acceptable."

"Why, that's almost cunning," I said.

Shitty Pong Ripoff - though that was only my personal name for it, the actual one being Bounce - wasn't anything impressive, but you wouldn't have known it looking at the girl's face. There was something like glee there, though it was quickly replaced by irritation when she lost. The, uh, difficulty levels might be in slight need of adjusting. I'd meant to get around to it, but just really didn't want to put in the effort. I watched Weiss grow more and more obstinate as she lost another two rounds, then her face light up when she came out victorious in the last. She was absorbed in the challenge and me too amused by her seriousness to pay attention to our surroundings, so we didn't realized we were no longer alone until someone cleared their throat. Weiss's head swivelled up, horrified, and I glanced at the person who'd interrupted. Ah, the butler from earlier.

"Klein," she said. "This isn't-"

"I insisted she try the game, since I made it," I said, mostly on impulse.

I almost winced after. Mother was going to have my head on a pike if whatever business deal she wanted to make got screwed because I corrupted Jacques Schnee's innocent daughter with plebeian entertainment. Weiss shot me a surprised look, the butler are more searching one.

"I did not see anything, Miss Weiss," he finally smiled. "Your father sent me to tell you dinner will be had soon, and to finish your tour."

"I will," Weiss said. "I mean, we will. Thank you Klein."

The butler chuckled, nodding before he left us to stand there. I cleared my throat.

"The Scroll," I prompted. "I understand the need to hide the murder weapon, but I _will_ need it back."

Her arms jumped and she handed it to me instead of continuing to hide it behind her back. The girl hesitated.

"Thank you," she finally said. "But you didn't need to do that. Klein is very kind."

I shrugged.

"Don't mention it," I said, then smiled. "Really, don't. You're not the only one who'd be in trouble if the parents got told."

"I will keep your secret, Marigold," she said, tone implying it was a great concession.

"You're kindness itself," I snorted. "Time for the courtyard before dinner, you think?"

"It can be done," Weiss agreed. "Follow me. And don't touch anything."

Though the layout of this place was opaque to me, evidently she knew her way around well. After going through a set of stairs where I'd been about seventy percent sure we'd gone through a closed corridor before, we ended up by the tall windows overlooking the courtyard. It really was beautiful, I thought. Frozen rose motifs on blue stone, hedges lightly touched by snow and moonlight had already begun to bathe the scene. The fountain with a Schnee emblem flanked by wings was a little much, but not enough to really detract from the whole.

"When weather allows I train with the rapier by fountain," Weiss proudly said. "Winter says she'll wake my Aura when I'm nine."

I glanced at her in surprise.

"You want to be a Huntress?" I asked.

"One does not need to serve as a Huntsman even if they have the training," she said. "My grandfather was a graduate of Atlas Academy, be he founded the Schnee Dust Company."

I conceded the point with a slow nod.

"Mine was too," I said. "I've read it was quite common, with the generation after the Great War. Atlas was where it was all happening even before the moved the capital."

"Winter says the same thing," Weiss said, a touch surprised.

That was twice she'd mentioned her older sister. Was that a bit of hero-worship I was hearing? Fair enough. I was an only child, in this life, but in the Old World I remembered thinking my older brother was the greatest thing around when I'd been a kid. Things got more complicated when you were older, but a bit of that always remained didn't it?

"He wasn't an adventurer like Nicholas Schnee, though," I mused. "I suppose going into electronics is a lot less dangerous than exploring for Dust deposits."

Silence was my reply, and I found Weiss' eyes on me when I turned.

"You've read about my grandfather?" she asked.

"He's only the greatest success story post-Great War," I replied, rolling my eyes. "It's pretty public stuff, Weiss. It's even on the SDC site, in the section about the company's history."

Which Mother had insisted I read before tonight, since flattery was always a favourite when social climbing and Atlesians as a whole had quite a bit of pride in the years they called the Rising Decades. The SDC page had a prettified version, of course. It was an open secret the founder of Schnee Dust had retired early because of health issues, but on the site it was presented as him passing the torch to the next generation instead.

"I've never seen the site," she said. "I don't have a Scroll."

"It was a hard sell with Mother," I admitted. "And there's restrictions on my access to the Network."

A silvery bell rang in the distance before she could reply, and Weiss peeled herself from the window. Dinner was ready. We made our way to the dining hall, and while I would have liked to say that what followed was worth the hype it was not. The food was delicious, and imported from northern Mistral as was popular in Atlas this season, but I was not part of the conversation at the table. Or meant to be. The adults spoke, while I sat across from Weiss at an overly large table and waited for it to be over. It took maybe a little more than an hour, for for lack of anything else to do I studied the older Schnees. Jacques was clearly in his element, and kept the conversation going with Mother without ever missing a beat - mostly about current affairs in the corporate world I knew nothing about. Mother Schnee only spoke sparingly, and I never saw her wine glass empty. If she was drunk, though, it didn't show. I never got the impression she was unhappy with anything, but neither did she seem particularly interested in the conversation going on. Not one much for business, maybe? Seemed a little gauche of her husband to keep that as the subject, but that _was_ why Mother had come.

I was sent home after dessert, when Mother Schnee decreed it was time for Weiss to go to bed and my own mother arranged for our airship to take me home. She patted my shoulder approvingly before dismissing me, and I took from that I hadn't made any glaring mistakes. Well, that was all I could ask for. The last I saw of her that night was her rising to her feet at Jacques Schnee invited her to his office for brandy. The butler escorted me to the same door I'd entered through and while I waited for another servant to bring my coat I was surprised to see Weiss pop out of a side door. Had she come to see me off? She stood in front of me and shuffled on her feet.

"While I would like to say you were a model guest," she announced, "you're actually quite annoying."

I snorted.

"You're hurting my feelings, Miss Schnee," I said amusedly.

The pale girl cleared her throat.

"That said, you're not the worst dimwit I've ever encountered," she conceded. "You may visit again, if you like."

Well, the moment she said that it was pretty much guaranteed I would. Mother wouldn't waste an opportunity to get close to the Schnees even if it cost her an arm and a leg. To be honest I was less than excited at the idea of a playdate with a seven year old when I could be doing something useful, but she had such a hopeful look on her face I didn't quite have the heart to not look enthused. I honestly hadn't thought she'd want to see me again, but I was starting to think she was a lot more lonely than I'd first guessed. With her sister just starting Atlas Academy, the manor must have felt a lot emptier than it used to.

"Until next time, then," I smiled. "Who knows, maybe you'll come to Marigold House one of these days."

She smiled almost bashfully and popped back out of side. Klein, when he escorted me out of the house and all the way to the airship, was acting with friendliness a lot more genuine than before. _Huh_ , I thought as the ramp closed and I settled into my seat. _So that was the Schnees._ I dismissed the train of thought and closed my eyes as the ship lifted. I doubted I'd see much of them in the future, no matter what Weiss said.


	4. Chapter 3

You'd think by now I'd have learned to expect I would be wrong about things but no, it still came as surprise every time. A week later I spent a few hours of the afternoon at Schnee Manor in a blatant playdate with Weiss, where I got to hear her play the piano and to confirm I wasn't any better at music in this life than I'd been in the last. Much mockery ensued, and I had to say she had a scathing talent with sarcasm for seven year old. It became a recurring occurrence, though never more than once a month. Mother was apparently under the impression I'd worked some kind of charm-based sorcery instead of accidentally ended up on the good side of a very sheltered girl, so I got my shoulder patted quite a bit. Attempts to parlay this into access to public forums on the Network were a failure, though. Ah, well. Couldn't win them all. Or even most of them, really. I avoided the presence of Jacques Schnee like the plague, which wasn't hard given that he apparently couldn't care less that I existed.

I was of sufficiently good family to be friendly with his daughter and Weiss was the active component in this, which seemed good enough as far as he was concerned. I wasn't going to poke that very influential beehive by coming to his attention if I could help it, so low profile it was.

Mother Schnee, whose name I had since learned but had kept under this mental label out of habit, occasionally graced us with her presence while I was in her house. I wouldn't cast stones, wasn't really in a position to since my own mother was pretty blatantly using me as a social-climbing prop, but what I got from her was that she was putting the absent back in absentee parent. Even when she was in the room, she didn't really seem… there. What was nearly always present, though, was a good glass of wine. She had a fondness of red, apparently. Even after three kids she was a beauty and charming when she put her mind to it, but that only tended to come out when there were more than a few people in a room. Weiss reaching out for the first kid her age to be presented to her was starting to make a lot of sense, even if she still acted half the time like she wanted to throttle me. Which, in all fairness, I was kind of asking for most the time. It was just a good time all around to pull at her metaphorical pigtails.

I was given at look at baby Whitley but never did get to meet the famous Winter, who chose to spend her break at Atlas Academy instead of coming home. Weiss was pretty broken up about it, but stubbornly maintained she was proud of her sister for taking her studies so seriously. In the end, the Schnees felt like a larger presence in my orderly little life than they actually were. Mostly, I assumed, because I didn't really socialize with anybody else. Tutors and hired servants didn't really count, and it wasn't like I saw Mother much aside from the occasional shared dinner and conversation in her solar about how my studies were going. Which was surprisingly well, actually. I'd begun burning through the files in my Scroll, and when I got stuck on a Programming problem I'd actually put a few weeks in catching up with the Hardware Architecture one. It was actually the main revenue stream for Marigold Company, so I might as well have a vague idea what the business paying for my future trust fund was actually peddling.

I pushed up my sleeves and seriously began to work on the Official Remnant Facebook Ripoff ™ after turning eight. I came in wary, remembering weeks of smashing my head against the metaphorical wall when I'd first tried, but to my surprise began making actual visible progress pretty quickly. Making it pretty was actually a lot harder than making it work - I had a working framework within two months, but it looked like Frankenstein's monster had a love child with a spreadsheet. Four months it took, before I created something I deemed would not embarrass me if shown to people. It involved no small amount of staying past my bedtime, facilitated by the cunning trick of sticking sheets over the door crack so the light didn't show from the outside. I was, truly, a master strategist. Looking at the done thing, the page looking all clean in gold and white, I came at the end of my vanity project and realized I had no real idea of what I wanted to do with this. Show it to Mother?

There were chat services that existed on the Network, but as far as I knew nothing that would really qualify as 'social media'. Ooh, speaking of, ripping off Twitter next? That had to be doable. I chewed over my options for a few days. I could just let my still-unnamed - robbing the name as well as the actual concept had seemed crossing some kind of invisible line to me - project gather theoretical dust in my terminal, but there was no real point to that. More importantly, I couldn't see what I had to lose by showing it to Mother. Even if she just waved it away, it was undeniably a technical achievement. And a sign of progress on my part, since the last visible thing I'd built was Shitty Pong. So, after another week of hesitant dawdling, I asked Mother for an hour on one of her evenings and access to a terminal to show her something. I had, deep down, for Bailey Marigold to pat me on the back and encourage me to study harder.

I did not expect for her face to go blank and for her to _order_ me to explain to her in detail how it would work. It escalated quickly after that.

We had a patent - officially from the crown of Atlas, actually from the Council - on my 'invention' before closing time the day that followed. I heard enough from even a single side of the the calls made in the officer to gather that there'd been a bit of creative bribery to pass through the red tape more quickly. Well, shit. There was a lot that could be said about Mother, but that she had a bad nose for business was not part of it. If she really thought it was worth the bribes, then this might just not be a vanity project after all. The day after that, I left Marigold House for the first time heading for somewhere that wasn't Schnee Manor. I was ushered into an airy company headquarters and led to an underground level, where in a well-lit room my Scroll was connected to a high-grade terminal and the embarrassingly named Placeholder Name code was projected on a hologram before a dozen actual professionals. I was made to stand before them and explain what I'd coded and why, some of the deeper technical questions going over my head. After the last question was done, there was a moment of silence in the room.

"Well?" Mother asked. "Thoughts?"

A bearded and bespectacled man wearing an incongruous labcoat and pretty awesome shirt emblazoned with the words ATLESIANS DO IT ROBOTICALLY cleared his throat and spoke up.

"I can think of maybe a hundred people in Atlas that could have done this, ma'am," he said. "All but one work for the military."

Mother frowned.

"Watts?" she asked.

Another of the professionals nodded.

"He's a lunatic," the woman she said. "But he's good, no one can deny that. Mister Marigold, you say you coded this by yourself?"

That was directed at me, even if calling someone my apparent age _mister_ was a little overboard. I nodded silently.

"Congratulations, ma'am," the first man laughed. "Company's got it made for the next generation."

 _Eight years old_ , he muttered under his breath. _Gods_. Well now, if they kept that up I was going to blush. However pleased I got, though, it was tempered by the fact that I'd pretty much stolen someone smarter's idea from the Old World and ported it over to somewhere there was an empty niche awaiting it. Wouldn't do to forget there was more opportunism involved in this than anything else.

"It will be restricted to Atlas itself," another man suddenly spoke up. "CCT can't support something like that worldwide, not in its current form. And we don't have the infrastructure in other kingdoms to set up a local version as far as I know."

"An issue for the marketing and development to solve, though I thank you for bringing it to my attention," Mother smoothly said. "Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your time. That will be all."

They filed out of the room and soon enough only the two of us were left. I shrugged.

"So what now?" I asked.

"My little golden goose," she said, smiling. "Now we use focus groups and market research to find out the kind of customer base we're looking at, then decided whether or not to go ahead."

I grimaced.

"Please don't call me that, Mother," I said. "What I meant is, do I need to stay here? I don't think I'm going to be of any use."

"No," she said. "I'll arrange for you to return home. You've done very well, Henry."

"Well enough to get my Scroll unshackled?" I tried.

She sighed.

"Is that really what you'll ask for?" she pressed. "I could have a Huntsman weapon built just for you. Or a trip to one of the resorts in Mistral."

"I'm sure those are nice," I said. "But I'm a little short on Grimm to shoot and Mistral's not going anywhere. The Scroll I'll use every day."

She looked amused at the reply, and a little chagrined.

"I'll have a new one brought to you at home," she said. "Leave this one here, I'll have it sent to our department."

Ah, sweet victory. And to think it had only taken me what, two years? Three? God, that was actually depressing now that I thought about it.

"Henry," she said, kneeling down to my height and putting a hand on my shoulder. "This is yours. Your work, your invention. Your code. Marigold Company will implement it, but the patent is in _your_ name - just in my trust until you come of age. The appropriate revenue will go into your personal account. I will not have your own father's company rob my son of what's his."

I hadn't actually expected that. I should have, though. The woman who'd given birth to me was distant yeah, and not above using me for her own gain - but she did love me, in her own way. She would only ever take advantage of me if I gained from it too. It wasn't much, wasn't at all like the family I remembered from the Old World. But here, in Remnant? In _Atlas_? I'd seen some of the other people that were our 'peers'. She was giving me all that she had to give, and that did mean something. I nodded, and to my shame felt my eyes tear up a bit. Neither of us said anything while she escorted me back to the company airship.

'Blossom'. That was what the marketing department of Marigold Company ended up calling it. With my newly unrestricted Scroll I got a glimpse of the thorough campaign of advertising on the Network that preceded the actual release. They did a nice little animation with the marigold flower logo unfolding into the Blossom interface, but if I had to watch the sequence one more time someone was going to get strangled. It was being plastered everywhere, even in my timewaster Scroll games. Whether it was a success or not was out of my hands, and to be honest I wasn't that attached to the idea, so I set it aside for the new horizons that had been opened to me. I had full access to the Network, and now I could return to the business of figuring out what made this world tick. Only when I had an understanding of that could I start making decisions with more scope than 'learn that thing' or 'eat that meal'. I took me weeks, but I did eventually come to the conclusion that there were three things I needed to be worried about: the Grimm, the Academies and Atlas itself.

The Grimm were not the most pressing of issues - the Kingdom of Atlas was a fortress bristling with weapons - but it was the most puzzling one by far. So far I'd thought of them mostly as a strange-looking extremely invasive species, but that had been missing the point entirely. The stories my nurse used to tell me hadn't been wrong, when they'd called the Grimm _monsters_. They didn't hunt other animals, which was honestly for the best considering how widespread they were. If the Grimm turned on wildlife, the impact on the ecosystem of Remnant would be… catastrophic. No, as far as scholarly records could tell the only thing Grimm attacked was man and man's creations. And the Faunus as well, of course, but even in academia they tended to be swept aside. Places of higher learning were not immune to institutional racism.

The Grimm made no biological sense. They did eat, but were theorized not to need actual sustenance. Which made the fact that they kept growing as they aged even stranger. Levels of intelligence were varied, with young Grimm running howling into prepared killzones for the change to kill a handful of soldiers but older creatures being more cautious. Worryingly enough, there were massive herds of elephant-like Grimm called 'Goliaths' that permanently circled the land borders of the kingdoms. What those were waiting for, no one was actually sure. God. That wasn't something I could un-know. Scholars disagreed on whether the creatures were attracted by negative emotions or human emotions as a whole, but one thing was known for certain: they could not use Aura. Why that was, when even animals could display Aura under the right circumstances, was still mystery. In large part because Grimm could not be studied, they inevitably died in captivity and as a species left no bodies behind.

The part that actually had me grinding my teeth was that there was no estimate on how many Grimm were in existence, or any real notion of how they were born. They could appear again in an area that had been swept clean my Huntsmen just a month before, even if it had been sealed on all sides. They were a clear, constant existential threat that absolutely no one had an answer to.

Which brought me to the second worry. Huntsmen and Huntresses, trained in the four Academies of the respective kingdoms. Once again, the Faunus got the bad end of the stick: Menagerie had no such school and no funds to build one. The closest to Huntsmen trainers they had were White Fang members who'd fought in the Faunus Rights Revolution, and I was very surprised no Council had realized exactly how much of a goddamn _powder keg_ that arrangement was. The academy system had been put in place by Vale after its side won the Great War, and in the wake of how horrifying that war had been I could see the sense in what they'd tried to do. Waging actual battles in Remnant, with all the death and despair that entailed, always attracted Grimm. And it wasn't like the Grimm left, after. They spread through the gaps in the defences of kingdoms, killing everything. So the Huntsmen had been set apart from the governments, a military force dedicated only to fighting the Grimm and who owed no allegiances to the kingdoms.

Except it hadn't quite worked out that way. Institutions that large and expensive couldn't be funded entirely on donations, which meant their budget had to be provided by the Councils. That had been one of the stipulations in the Vytal Treaty that ended the Great War, but the Councils were still _governments_. They weren't going to raise and equip independent military forces over which they had no control and no real counter to. A single Huntsman could effortlessly tear through a platoon of troops that didn't have Aura without taking a single wound: the Academies fielded the four largest militaries in Remnant, even if most weren't centralized enough to be fielded like a regular army. The compromise achieved in the years after Vytal had been the return of Huntsmen to their traditional roles in leading the defences of the kingdoms. Graduates could keep living off missions, yes, but a significant portion instead served as protectors to specific areas and held authority over local troops.

It was borderline feudal, but for most kingdoms it was working. There wasn't a need for a large amount of Huntresses roaming around taking missions, after all. If only a fourth of graduates overall did that, the niche was filled. There were underlying problems, though, that were beginning to show. You couldn't have a section of your population being invincible demigods who in theory answered only to high-brow ideals without a cult of personality forming, and that was Not A Good Thing. Huntsmen were celebrities. They were cultural heroes and they were halfway outside the rule of law. It wasn't like regular police could stop a bank robber with Aura, after all. You needed someone else with Aura, or goddamn artillery, to do the job. Which meant Huntresses were the main check on Huntresses, and they'd grown into a kind of social caste outside the rules for normal people. It didn't help that having teenagers with raging hormones and superperpowers was bound to lead to destruction.

That had been the excuse Atlas used for their 'reform' of Atlas Academy. It'd been popular at a time, in part because the military pride was big with Atlesians but also for deeper cultural reasons. Atlas wasn't like the other three kingdoms, who had open landmasses to expand into. The weather on Solitas was forbidding, and though the continent was rich in Dust and easily defensible settlement sides there was only so much inhabitable space. Room was always at a premium, and if a bunch of trainees wrecked a city quarter over a spat then there was hard backlash from the general population. So Atlas Academy had come under the wing of the military. Its current headmaster, James Ironwood, was also a general in the Atlesian army. Most the graduates ended up serving in the army as well, and though it wasn't mandatory - that would have been a breach of the Vytal Treaty - it was 'strongly encouraged'. About nine tenths of Huntsmen graduates ended up wearing Atlesian uniforms when their four years were over, and that had the other kingdoms _worried_.

Not enough to act, though, and the reason for that wasn't pretty ideals but cold hard numbers. Atlas Academy wasn't popular at all with the candidate pool for Aura-users. Though most graduates ended up in the military, the quantity of Huntresses the school produced wasn't large enough to scare the other kingdoms. Trainees here were almost universally Atlesians, with next to no presence from outside the kingdom. A stark contrast to Beacon in Vale, the oldest, largest and most prestigious of the academies - where almost half the students in any single batch came from outside Vale.

Atlas' reputation abroad was a recurring theme, and that brought me to the third and last issue I'd have to watch out for: the Kingdom of Atlas itself. My homeland was the richest and most military powerful of the four kingdoms, with technology heads and shoulders above anyone else's. It also had a terrible diplomatic record. The old alliance with Mistral that had formed one side of the Great War had been set aside for closer ties with the Kingdom of Vale, and for good reason. Vale was the granary of Remnant, and Atlas _badly_ needed the food. The technology and massive Dust deposits made us good trading partners for Vale, but it had not made us liked. Atlas Academy being under the military had rung alarm bells, a callback to the old days of Mantle actively being a kingdom-sized military camp, and it had to be said that Atlas corporations were acting like cutthroats to local economies. With him homeland slowly edging everyone else out of the Dust trade, our filling pockets had come at the expense of a lot of people's bottom lines.

What had shaken me up, though, was the realization that the current Kingdom of Atlas was basically a pyramid scheme. Dust, technology and military strength were the three pillars of the kingdom. They fed into each other. Dust deposits had ensured Atlas could field and afford a strong military, which enabled it to claim more Dust deposits from the Grimm. That part of the system was dangerous, but not _too_ unstable. The problem came from when those profits were spent on research. The Dust trade was profitable - if anything I'd compare it to the spice trade of the Old World, if literally _everything_ on the Old World had run on spices - but it wasn't _that_ profitable. That meant costs had to be cut somewhere for the kingdom to advance, and that place was the workers. Not just pay, though that would have been bad enough. Work conditions had taken a drop too, with companies refusing to more than the minimum to prevent accidents. No workers' comp, or basically anything that would take the kingdom out of the worst excesses of the Industrial Revolution in the Old World.

The mess was centred on Mantle. The old capital was now a toxic pack of mines, factories and slums. And all those were fed by the labour of Faunus. That had actually surprised me. Not because of any great trust in the moral fibre of Atlesian corporations, but because I hadn't thought there were enough Faunus in Atlas for that. The kingdom had practiced slavery before the Great War and unsurprisingly Faunus had been the designated target for enslavement, but the actual slave population hadn't been large - and a lot of them had fled to Menagerie during the Faunus Rights Revolution. The logistics of acquiring that workforce were pretty horrifying, as it turned out: they were imported. Corporations went to the poorest sectors of Vacuo and Mistral and offered passaged across the sea along with assured jobs to desperate people. And when they got to Mantle, they were sent straight to the mines and factories. Even if they wanted to leave, how could they? Ships out of Atlas were expensive, and uprooting a family twice even more so.

And so discontent was rising. The White Fang was trying to redress the situation with strikes, but strikes cost money to get going and they didn't have a lot of backers. The rich were getting richer, Atlas accumulated guns and ships, and the underclass was getting cornered deeper every year. This entire kingdom was about to go up in flames, and maybe a better man would have tried to do something about it but I was a fucking eight year old kid now. I wasn't a hero, I was just some chump dropped in another world. What I needed was an exit strategy, before I burned down with this place.

Not the most glorious of plans, but it was what I had.


	5. Chapter 4

"Father says I should congratulate you," Weiss said, sounding dubious. "Your mother's company released a very popular product."

"Blossom's free to access," I noted. "It's the advertising the company makes money from."

She frowned, button nose wrinkling.

"And it is some sort of… friend platform?" she said. "It sounds like a hoax."

I snorted.

"Don't be a brat, Weiss," I replied. "It's working out just fine. I think. I haven't been following all that closely."

I knew Blossom was making some waves, but practically speaking I wasn't really aware of what was happening with it. Mother had spent an entire week as the picture of smugness when she'd been approached by the military to put recruitment ads on the platform, which she assured me was a sign the Marigold Company was going places, but aside from that I had no idea what was going on. I hadn't joined it myself, and didn't intend to.

"Your business acumen is truly peerless," the girl told me scathingly.

"Acumen," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Fancy word. Have you been reading a word of the day day calendar, Weisscakes?"

Her cheeks inflated and turned red like she was some sort of white-haired angry pufferfish. It was, I had to admit, hilarious to look at.

"You will cease calling my by that infernal nickname," she ordered. "And for your information, I have been reading _books_. Some of us take our education seriously."

"If you keep it up your face will get stuck that way," I idly replied.

She immediately made an effort to look calm again, though not because of my teasing. Her family had been hounding her about decorum lately, preparing her for her official introduction to polite society.

"Where are we going, anyway," she coughed, changing the subject.

It was her first time at Marigold House, so I'd given her the general tour. For the parts I could access, anyway. Mother's wing was still barred by keycard locks. Though pretty luxurious by my standards, it really wasn't much compared to Schnee Manor. Built in different styles, too. Weiss' home was all classic architecture and marble, down to having actual statues, while mine was in the minimalist Atlesian mold: all steel and shining surfaces. The balcony in the back was worth a look, though. It overlooked the skyline of Atlas city, though not from as beautiful an angle as Mother's solar, and her eyes had lit up when I'd showed her where to stand to have a good view of the CCT tower.

"My room," I told her.

Took me a moment to realize I couldn't hear her following anymore, and when I turned to look I saw her pale face had turned crimson.

"I can't go into a _boy's_ room," she hissed. "It would be improper."

My brow rose.

"Weiss, we're eight," I said. "There's being proper and then there's being a stiff."

She was fuming and that didn't look like a battle I was going to win, so I sighed.

"I'll leave the door open," I offered. "Will that be enough?"

"It will pass," she said, still a little miffed. "What do you want to show me, anyway?"

"I made a game," I said, and just like that I was back on her good side.

I assumed at some point there would be consequences to corrupting Jacques Schnee's perfect daughter with sweets and video games - she'd never eaten taffy before, of all things - but hopefully by then I'd be too far from Atlas for him to throw a fit. I sat her down in front of my personal terminal and loaded up 'Cannoneer'. It was an Angry Birds ripoff, no two ways about it. I'd changed the skin to Grimm instead of pigs and an Atlesian cannon instead of a slingshot, with the different birds being different kinds of Dust instead. Unlike Blossom, I doubted this would make waves of any sort. There were nice games out there available for Scrolls. But it'd kept my hands busy, and it was decent experience. Weiss, I learned as she plopped herself down ceremoniously and began tearing through the game, had exceedingly good eye-hand coordination. And a talent for gauging trajectories. She would have done even better if I hadn't heckled her throughout the whole five levels of Cannoneer, but even as it was her score was nearly perfect. I could see her itch to have another go, but she forced herself to have an actual conversation instead. I tossed a wrapped taffy at her head as a reward, to her indignant squawk.

"How are the sword lessons going?" I asked.

She delicately bit into the sweet and swallowed before answering.

"Rapier lessons, Henry, not just any sword," she said. "And quite well, thank you. My tutors say my footwork is coming along nicely."

"I'm surprised you're using one of those," I said. "Huntress weapons are usually more…"

I gestured vaguely, implying something between 'large' and 'hard-hitting'. I hadn't studied fighting in Remnant a great deal, but in the Old World rapiers had been for duellists. Not a battlefield weapon. I wasn't sure how effective they'd really be against something like Grimm.

"Father is having a weapon built for me," she replied. "It will be both elegant and powerful, as befitting a Schnee."

As befitting a Schnee, unbefitting of a Schnee. Both sentences came up regularly when we spoke, and though they weren't always preceded by a mention of her father his shadow was never far from them. Exposure to his daughter had not made me any fonder of Jacques Schnee as a person. Even if he meant well, his little speeches were going to leave marks when Weiss grew up.

"It'll use Dust, you mean," I translated bluntly.

"Yes, Marigold," she sighed. "It will 'use Dust'. Like nearly all Huntress weapons."

I hummed but did not continue with the teasing. Dealing Weiss was a balancing act. I was pretty sure she enjoyed my messing with her, no matter how much she protested, but if I took it to far she'd sulk.

"What do you want to be?" she suddenly asked. "When you grow up?"

I fixed her with a steady look.

"I don't know," I admitted after a moment. "But I want to travel, that's for sure."

Staying in Atlas wasn't in the cards. Vale was a little too closely tied for my tastes and Vacuo sounded like the Wild West but with the charming addition of a horde of man-eating monsters, so it would have to be Mistral. The place was horrid in a bunch of ways, sure, but so was everywhere else on Remnant. The rich there got to live in their own little worlds, so as long as I came loaded I should be fine. Presenting it as spreading Marigold Company to another kingdom might even see me go there with Mother's blessing.

"Travel between kingdoms is quite hazardous," Weiss said

"I'm aware," I said.

That was how my never-met father had bought the farm, in this life. His airship got caught by Grimm on the way to Vale. All hands lost. Wasn't nearly as rare as the Councils would have you believe.

"But there's more to the world than this city," I thought. "It'd be a shame to never see any other parts of it."

"I'll protect you when you travel," Weiss decided, a serious expression on her face. "It would reflect badly on me if you died, after all."

I grinned. It was hard to ever get irritated with the girl, even when the worst of her character came out to play. She was so _genuine_ , in her reluctant little way.

"I feel safer already," I assured her.

Her eyes narrowed at the tone, and within moments we were squabbling again. I smiled anyway. I supposed it was inevitable that there would be parts of Atlas I'd miss, when I left.

XXX

I was nine years old, when reality came calling. I'd been paying so little attention to Blossom I'd hadn't realized how popular it'd actually gotten. That was good, for the profit margins of the Marigold Company. It also meant scrutiny, and not just from the competition. Atlas wasn't like the other kingdoms, after all. The distinction between the private and the public sector was… hazy at the best of times. If anything got large enough, the Council and the military took a good look at it. And Blossom, it seemed, had gotten large enough to warrant that look. As I stood by Mother in tailored clothes made to be reminiscent of an Atlas military uniform - but not so close in appearance it would count as impersonating military personnel, which was a crime - I wondered what it was that'd done it. My bet was it involved censorship. All the kingdoms censored the hells out of anything that was publically accessible, be it news or the Network, put private platforms were a bit of a grey area.

It was a fine line between keeping order and smothering the engines of progress.

Considering who we were supposed to meet I'd expected the meeting to be held at Atlas Academy, but this was a public army headquarters in downtown Atlas. The entire sector was guarded, I'd seen on the way in. It was the way Atlas City was built: every section was walled and built outwards from the academy at the centre. If the Grimm breached any single part it could be sealed off within moments, the soldiers and Hunstmen of the army using the broad avenues emanating from the Academy to reinforce any set of walls in the city. Though there were a dozen earlier defence lines before any creature would even get in sight of Atlas City, the Council had not been stingy in making its new capital defensible after the Great War. Not that this was any comfort to me at the moment. The Grimm were far, far away. What I had to watch out for was waiting on the other side of a set of bare steel doors.

"Be silent unless spoken to," Mother reminded me quietly.

"I'm not sure why I'm even here," I admitted. "I'm a minor. Anyway, shouldn't we have a lawyer with us?"

Bailey Marigold stared at me with a mild expression and I eventually winced. Yeah, that'd been pretty stupid of me to say. Considering the Council named the judges in Atlas and the Council walked hand in hand with the military, expecting the judiciary to be a shield was much like pissing in the wind.

"I assume they learned Blossom was your creation," Mother said after she decided I'd been sufficiently chastised. "It was kept under wraps, but no boardroom is ever truly airtight."

Assuming the military hadn't outright lifted the information out of someone's Scroll. Big Brother was king, in Atlas, more so than the _actual_ king we had. We weren't made to wait for much longer, or even long as a whole. Maybe three minutes? Punctuality was one of the few virtues no one could deny Atlesians kept to. The doors slid open and an adjutant ushered us in, leaving me to get my first good look at one of the most powerful men in Atlas. General James Ironwood - I was assuming it was in that function we were meeting him and not that of headmaster - was basically a recruiter poster made flesh. Square jaw, stylishly greying temples and icy blue eyes, all of them set over broad shoulders and the hard muscle of a man who'd spent this years on the field. He was a Huntsman of no small fame and one for the youngest men to ever be promoted to the rank of general. In the list of 'People Not To Fuck With In Atlas' I would have him sharing first place with Jacques Schnee. Weiss' father was absurdly rich, sure, but he couldn't actually order a squad of Atlesian infantry to kick in my front door. This man certainly could, if he felt like it.

"Ms and Mister Marigold," the general said, politely rising to his feet. "Please, be seated."

We obeyed, like good little citizens. We were not offered refreshments: it wasn't going to be that kind of meeting.

"I know your time is precious Ms Marigold, so I'll get straight to the point," Ironwood said. "The Council has tasked me with gaining access to the user data on your platform."

I forced myself not to grimace. The silence in the room, I thought, was the prelude to our rolling over and taking it.

"Our clients were given assurance of privacy," Mother replied, though she didn't outright refuse.

I cast a surprised look at her. What was the game, here? She knew just as well as I did that the general could have a warrant to dissect our every terminal within the hour if he asked for it. Ah. She hadn't refused, she'd only expressed reluctance. Mother was putting herself in a bargaining position. _Fuck it_ , I thought. _If they want to go full totalitarian on us, I hope you bleed them dry for the right._

"And while I do not mean to impact your business," Ironwood said, "there are security concerns at work. I assume you've been following the strikes?"

My fingers clenched. Shit. How could I not have seen this coming. The Arab Spring, it'd been right in my face the whole time and I still hadn't seen it coming. When there'd been that wave of popular uprisings across the Middle East, social media had been used a coordination tool. It was hard for the people in power to shut down, and could reach anyone with the internet. Blossom was a way for anyone with a Scroll or terminal access to get in touch and organize. That meant the White Fang no longer had to go door-to-door or depend on local leaders. They could mobilize the grassroots directly.

"You believe the White Fang is using Blossom to organize them," Mother frowned.

"We know for a fact they do," the general said, and it didn't sound like a guess.

"It's not illegal."

Silence in the room. I had said that. Shit, I really should not have said that. How bad did military prison have to be?

"Excuse my son," Mother said, and the look she shot me was pure murder. "He is to young to understand the stakes."

The general raised his hand in appeasement.

"I insisted to the Council that he be in the room for this, after learning Blossom was his project," Ironwood said, and met my eyes. "You are owed to know what your work is used for. No, son, the strikes aren't illegal. But using your platform they're getting larger in scope, and exposing protesters to violent elements."

He cleared his throat.

"We don't want look into the private affairs of our citizens," he said. "Just to avert incidents by finding out about them before there's violence on the streets."

 _There's another way to do this_ , I thought. _You could give the goddamn underclass living wages, give them enough buying power to participate in the market instead of just being screwed by it. But doing that would cut into the profits of the people who paid for this nice office, so we both know it's not going to happen._ I nodded, like I'd been convinced.

"I don't mean to offend," I said. "I'm just worried of how it would look, if it came out the Council was looking at the private messages of citizens who haven't actually broken the law."

Ironwood seemed unimpressed by my little retreat. Hadn't bought it, huh? Well, as long as it got Mother even slightly off my back.

"I imagine few would be surprised," the general said, sounding rueful. "But let's avoid that outcome anyway. The Council is willing to compensate you for the access, Ms Marigold."

From there it was just horse-trading, and I paid little attention to it. Mother angled more for military contracts than outright monetary compensation, and I mentally tipped my hat to her for it. Getting the company's foot in the door there would be a lot more lucrative in the long term than just taking the bribe we were pretty much being offered right now. We were out of that office before an hour was out, and though she didn't say anything in public I could see from the way Mother kept her face blank that she was still furious. Goddamnit. I really was going to pay for this, wasn't I?


	6. Chapter 5

At ten years old I saw Weiss Schnee perform on the stage for the first time, and I seriously wondered if I was looking at the same taffy-addict that occasionally lounged in my room. She was still nine, the brat, since I was a few months older than her. But you wouldn't know it looking at her all angelic on the platform. She'd done recitals before, I knew, but this was her first performance in front of an actual crowd. I imagined most of them had come because she was a Schnee, but from the fervour of the clapping that followed the curtain's fall I suspected at her next show there'd be quite a few people there for the music instead of the name. Mother was seated right next to me - front row, of course, Marigold Company was a rising enterprise these days - and she seemed genuinely impressed. As 'family associates' of the Schnees, we were invited to the private reception that followed. I was less than sanguine at the idea of milling around with corporate bandits and socialites for an hour, but I might as well clap Weiss on the back after she'd sung her heart out.

To my unpleasant surprise, I was not the only child around. There were a half-dozen kids of 'good families', and even a handful of sullen teenagers slouching in corners and sneaking glasses of wine. I stayed at Mother's side and found myself introduced to one child after another. I was a little slow on the uptake for this sort of thing, so it took me a while to realize what was happening. I was being introduced to mostly girls, and the parents making the introductions nearly always mentioned my 'hobby' of programming. Really? With ten years old? I knew the upper classes in Atlas weren't above the occasional strategic wedding, but this was starting early enough to just be crass. Mother drank it in, of course. I supposed bragging rights went some way in making up for the weirdness of the kid she'd been saddled with. I ended up excusing myself after the eighth too-casual introduction, pretending I was craving some of the food being passed around. On silver plates. Could you be any more tacky, Jacques Schnee?

I gravitated towards one of the darker corners and found they were already populated by teens. Two were making eyes at each other and I wanted nothing to do with that, but I also caught sight of a band of three lingering by a balcony tucked away in a corner. One, a guy slightly older than the others, was showing off a small pack and what looked like a lighter. Was that… I crept closer and my eyes widened. Cigarettes. I hadn't even known Remnant had tobacco, though I have vague memory of seeing someone smoking a cigar in a movie. I wasn't apparently subtle enough, because they saw me.

"Got it from my uncle, you know," the teenager was saying. "He's been to Vacuo - what do you want, kid?"

All three were looking at me, not outright hostile but far from friendly. Kids not welcome, I guessed. I cast a careful look behind me and found no one paying attention.

"Those are smokes?" I asked.

He got up in my face.

"So what?" he asked.

I had a couple of lien on me, allowance for snacks I'd not been hungry enough to get, and I got the chit out.

"Buy them off of you," I said. "And the lighter too."

"Yeah, screw off," the guy snorted, and the others laughed.

"Come on," I said. "At least spot me one."

"You're like what, eight?" a girl teased.

"Ten," I sighed. "Look, do you want the lien or not? One cigarette, and use of your lighter."

"Hey, if you want to puke in public it's your right," the teenager grinned. "Kids these days, right?"

The others laughed like he'd actually been funny. He handed me the pack and I fished one out, taking the offered lighter and cracking open a window. The cold filtered out but I was past caring: with a flourish I lit the cigarette, and took a small drag. I no longer had smoker lungs, after all. I managed not to choke, though my eyes were tearing up when I handed back the pack and lighter. I blew out a stream of smoke and sighed.

"Oh Sweet Mother Nicotine," I said. "I return to your blessed embrace."

Robbed the entertainment of seeing me cough my lungs out, the teenager got irritated and called me a freak before leaving with his cohorts in two. Good, I didn't want the bunch of them spoiling my first fix in what was forever. I heard footsteps approaching and and took another drag, exhaling before speaking up.

"No backsies," I said. "Get your fun elsewhere."

"Henry Marigold, I presume?" a girl's voice said.

I turned in surprise, and immediately knew who I was looking at. I'd met her mother after all, and she had the same looks. More severe, on her face, but I could not find it in me to call Winter Schnee anything but gorgeous. She wore the dark Atlas Academy uniform, molded perfectly against what I could only call an hourglass figure, and it was only when her eyes met mine I realized I'd been staring. And also caught redhanded with a cigarette in hand a high society shindig. Well, there went my first impression. At this point putting the smoke out would just be wasteful, so instead I took another drag and sighed in pleasure.

"That's me," I agreed. "And you're Winter Schnee."

"Weiss did not mention you are a delinquent," Winter coldly said.

"I keep it under wraps," I said. "We're at an impressionable age."

Her glare intensified.

"If you keep looking at me like that I'll get frostbite," I mused.

"Do you think flippancy impresses me, Marigold?" she said.

"Look, you just ran into me with a cigarette in hand," I said, and inhaled.

I directed the stream of smoke outwards, because I wasn't a savage and also did not want to get even more caught.

"This was only ever going to go downhill from there," I finished.

"Your self-awareness does you credit," Winter said, tone implying the opposite.

I snorted. It must be a Schnee family talent, getting that much venom in a sentence so short. I tried not look at her too much. It was hard to stay calm when I felt like blushing.

"You don't look like the dark corner type, so I'm guessing you were looking for me," I ventured.

"What you know of what 'type' I am would not fill a thimble," she tartly replied. "And yes, I was. Weiss has mentioned you enough a meeting was warranted."

"You don't sound approving," I said.

I took a long drag from the cigarette, forgetting I had ten year old previously pristine lungs, and ended up coughing. Cursing under my breath I put out the cigarette into the snow outside before I could make more of a fool out of myself, tossing it out of sight. I closed the window and found Winter Schnee sneering down at me. It was a surprisingly good look on her.

"I've heard of your family," she said.

That was a 'no, get away from my sister you social-climbing twerp'. I could respect her wanting to look out for Weiss, but I was a little irritated that instinct was turned on me when I hadn't done anything to warrant it. Well, except the smoking. But that was once! And I got the impression she'd come here with her stance already chosen, so screw being all chastised.

"Have you?" I said, and this time I had a hint of frost to my own voice. "I've heard of yours too, but I tend to think listening to rumour is a mistake."

"Your being acquainted with my sister will not benefit your mother's company," she said flatly. "Cease before you hurt Weiss and consequences must be had."

"Oh, fuck you," I bluntly replied. "You're looking out for her and I'm glad _someone_ is, but you don't know anything about me. Kindly stop pretending you do."

She glanced pointedly at the now-closed window and I grimaced, a little pained.

"Except that," I corrected. "Which she has not and will not see me do."

Sneaking smokes into Marigold House would be herculean labour anyway. I was also a ten year old with no financial resources, so it wasn't like I could walk into a store and get a pack.

"See that she doesn't," Winter Schnee ordered. "Do not overstep, Henry Marigold. You would not enjoy what follows."

And like that she just turned her heels and left, not even pretending this had been a conversation and not a warning.

"Nice to meet you too," I called out.

I sighed after. Getting the last word was a lot less gratifying when you knew the other person wasn't listening. I left the corner quickly and took what looked like a caviar pastry from a plate, guzzling it down to hide the smell of cigarette on my breath. During my absence Weiss had come out, and was making the rounds gathering the obligatory - if well-deserved - compliments. She saw me before long, and excused herself from her father's side.

"Henry," she smiled. "You came."

"You circled the date in red ink on the invitation," I snorted. "Twice. I took the hint."

"Yes, well, I know how forgetful you can be," she muttered. "What did you think?"

I grinned.

"Eh, it was all right," I said. "Between you and me, I think the artist is overrated."

She looked so bone-deep offended by that I couldn't help but laugh.

"It was great, Weiss," I said. "I'm glad I came."

She was visibly pleased, and just as visibly trying not to show it.

"I'd offer you lessons," she smirked, "but those only work for one with a modicum of talent."

"We'll see who's laughing in ten years," I said, "when my singing voice is weaponized against the Grimm and I'm savior of all Remnant."

"Some victories," she told me gravely, "come at too great a cost."

She didn't stay to talk with me for long, since she was the star of the evening and she had socialites to be gushed over by, and I bade her goodnight since the odds of us speaking again were low. Already Schnee Senior was looking around for his daughter with an irritated look on his face, though it was gone in the blink of an eye when someone began speaking to him. Ah, well. Schnee family business was none of mine, that much had been clear even before the eldest daughter basically verbally pulled a knife on me.

XXX

Around three months after the concert our butler came to my room and told me I was expected in Mother's solar, which had me a little puzzled. It was too early in the week for this to be about my studies, which were going well anyway. I was already qualified to enter a prep school and begin my secondary education, to be honest, but I'd argued loudly against being sent forward with this much of an age gap so instead tutors were getting me started on the coursework early. Maybe something about Blossom? Seemed unlikely, considering Mother rarely went out of her way to keep me in the loop about it and that had entirely stopped since the military got involved. Not that I minded. The least I had to do with the guns of Atlas, the better. I was expected so there was no dawdling outside, and I took my usual seat in front of her desk. Strange how it used to be that my feet were hanging in the air, while now I felt the floor under my shoes.

"Henry," Mother smiled. "I have a project for you."

I raised an eyebrow. This was new. She'd only ever left me at my own devices before. Part of me wanted to comment on the ominousness of that opening sentence, but I kept my mouth shut. Lip to Bailey Marigold never paid off. Long fingers tinkering with the holographic interface of her terminal, she brought up schematics and the moment I saw the words in the upper corner I froze. _Atlas Security - Classified_. Displayed under them was a hulking shape of metal with a glowing blue visor, titled Atlesian Knight - 160, Crowd Control Model.

"This is military hardware," I said. "You're kidding."

"I very much am not," she said. "Marigold Company is among the three finalists who may be awarded the contract to produce their operating system. We have six months to create a proposal, after which the General Board will review it and make a decision."

"I mean, congratulations," I said slowly. "But I don't see what that has to do with me."

"Henry, let us dispense with the false humility," she sighed. "I want you to be involved. Not project lead, you're too young for that, but you'll have free rein to work as you wish."

Yeah, no, absolutely not. I was not getting into bed with Ironwood's crowd, not even by proxy. That was the kind of thing that put a target on your back for the rest of your life, and I very specifically wanted to avoid that.

"I've never done AI that sophisticated," I said.

She looked at me, visibly disappointed, and took out a small metal memory stick. She hooked it to the terminal, and a screen with Remnant: Total War came up, a catchy little jingle starting up. Fuck. I didn't think she knew about that. I'd tried my hand at a strategy game after Cannoneer, this one close to an original though I was cribbing off the Total War series I vaguely remembered from the Old World. It was unplayable, though. I'd been a decent hand at strategy games in the last life and still was, but the AI I'd done systematically wiped the floor with me. The rendition was also shit, but I wasn't a graphic artist so whatever.

"I'm _ten years old_ ," I tried instead. "I have no qualifications for a project like this. You'd be laughed out of the room if it was known I had a hand in this, and you know my name will have to be on there. They'll want to ask questions if we get picked."

"You do," Mother replied calmly. "Have qualifications, that is."

"Look, Blossom's a success but it's not military tech," I said. "No matter what your guys at the company said."

"That is not what I'm referring to," she said. "Did you never wonder at the difficulty of the educational folders I put on your Scroll?"

I blinked, a sinking feeling in my guts.

"Those weren't just introductory modules, were they?" I finally said.

"The first six were," Bailey Marigold said, pale brown eyes unblinking. "The six that followed were Atlas Academy curriculum. The ones you are currently wrestling with are specialized engineering and programming courses for the military."

Shit. This whole time I'd thought I was keeping a somewhat low profile as a talented kid who'd had some lucky breaks but I remembered now the note she'd left with the folders when I first seen them. The time I spent on this, the modules I cleared, they were all registered by her own Scroll. I'd graduated Hardware Architecture at a Huntsman level at _nine years old_. That was the goddamn opposite of a low profile.

"You seemed reluctant to display your full effort," Mother noted. "Fear of the attention it would warrant, I assume. But I did tell you, Henry - I will not waste a prodigy."

I closed my eyes.

"Crowd control," I said. "The schematics had that. It's meant to be used on people, and you still want me to be involved?"

"You've always had a fondness for the downtrodden," she noted. "It does flare up at the most inopportune times. Think of it this way, my sweet: if you are the one designing the system, you can be sure no unnecessary violence will occur."

"You know that's now how that works," I said quietly, meeting her gaze. "If I'm part of this, that stays with me. I'll have _collaborated_."

"Collaborated," she repeated, and softly laughed. "You do say the most childish things, sometimes. You are already part of this, Henry. It paid for your room, your toys, the clothes on your back. You are not an island unto yourself."

"There's a difference between benefitting and participating," I said.

"Is there?" Mother wondered. "You will grow less sentimental, as you age. It will serve you better than… this."

"I don't want to do this," I said, since the time for excuses was over.

"And yet you will," Mother said. "It is only a matter of when. Good night, sweetheart."

I didn't stay in that solar a moment longer than I had to.


	7. Chapter 6

If I had to put a name to what had me following the Faunus strikes it would be morbid curiosity, along with a smidgeon of self-preservation. Historically speaking, strikes and protests had a chequered record when it came to actually accomplishing what they set out to do – for every Ghandi you had half a dozen European general strikes from the Industrial Revolution which hadn't done much of anything. It would be even more uphill of a battle in Remnant, I suspected. Democracy was recent thing around here: not even eighty years ago royalty was leading armies into battle across all continents. As for civil rights, well, in a world where the Grimm were always a looming danger every kingdom was only ever one bad day about from effective martial law. As far as optics went for these things, 'agitation will lead a horde of human-devouring monsters to our doorstep' was a pretty good excuse to shut down a protest. Atlas was taking a light touch so far, though, and I found that rather interesting.

Most strikes happened in Mantle, which wasn't surprising in the least: the old capital had the highest concentration of Faunus in the kingdom by a massive margin. Also of factories and Dust refineries, which wasn't exactly a coincidence. Miners had it the worst, so the initial strikes came from there. Atlas Police didn't get involved save for making sure no destruction took place, and the White Fang were out in force as well to prevent the same – everyone was being _very_ careful no Dust got dropped, well aware it was all downhill from there. The companies didn't flinch even the face of entire workforces picketing their own mines: they brought in strike-breakers, usually other Faunus but sometime humans from Mantle as well. The backlash over that was… harsh. Faunus accused strike-breakers of their own kind of being race traitors, and there were lists out on the Network of confirmed 'scabs'. A pillory for the modern age, public shaming for the Modern Atlas.

I had bone-deep distaste for side of this class war being fought from the boardrooms, but oh I had to admire how clever they were being about this. By using Faunus as strike-breakers they were turning the pool of protesters against each other. Even if they had to temporarily hitch salaries for the scabs, they could afford the monetary losses – the White Fang could not, at least not to the same extent. Every day the strike didn't succeed was weakening the movement and burning through whatever strike funds the Fang had on had. That was the largest problem of the White Fang as an organisation, as far as I could see: it couldn't afford to fight on even terms with the opposition. It made sense. What support base did the Fang have? Faunus at large, which weren't usually rich enough to afford significant contributions. The only state backing it was Menagerie, and Menagerie had only become an actual nation in the last thirty years. It'd been a Faunus possession since the Great War, sure – the grant was part of the Vytal Treaty – but the largest influx of immigrants had come during the Faunus Rights Revolution, which was more recent.

I could see why it hadn't been a popular option, too. Two thirds of the island were inhospitable desert, and while it was a save haven it was also heavily overcrowded. More than that, there'd been no infrastructure on the island at the time of the grant. Everything there had to be built form scratch, without more than symbolic economic support from the four kingdoms. It was out of the way of the traditional sea trade lanes, and had little resources worth the expense of rectifying that. Documentation on the early years of Menagerie was sparse and the Atlesian sources I could find were lightly sprinkled with racism like goddamn fairy dust, but as far as I could tell for the first twenty years the island had depended almost entirely on humanitarian aid from Vale and imports to feed the inhabitants. What little money there was to spare in Menagerie these days went in keeping the supply lines and island itself clear of Grimm. What I got from that was that the White Fang got support from the people in charge of Menagerie, little of it was lien. Manpower, expertise and contacts: that was the only things the Fang had to spare.

It showed, because as the weeks passed I watched the strike strategy evolve to match the tactics of Atlas corporations. Instead of targeting specific mines or companies to force them to improve conditions or watch their profits plummet, the strikes began to be generalized. A third of the mines and refiners in Mantle closed the same day, and that made _waves_. With over a dozen companies scrabbling for the same limited strike-breakers, for the first time since the strikes had begun some facilities had to close down. Didn't last long, though. The corporations hitched salaries for scabs even further, and that saw more desperate Faunus desert the cause. But it had been a warning shot across the bow, I thought. The White Fang knew they could actually have an effect, there was blood in the water. There were attempts to extend the movement to Atlas City, but those got shot down pretty hard. Someone in charge on the other side must have had a sense of showmanship, because their first try was on the Schnee Dust Company.

There were few mines near the city, and almost no factories, but Faunus were used for more than just backbreaking labour. The cleaning staff of the Schnee headquarters went on strike without warning, and response was… swift. Within the hour, order had come from Jacques Schnee himself for them to be fired. Before noon on the same day, their jobs were entirely scrapped and robots were brought in to handle the cleaning. The message from the SDC was clear: _go against us and you won't just lose_ , _the jobs will be gone as well_. Another two attempts at strikes were met just as harshly by leading companies and that killed the movement in the egg. The White Fang stuck to protests and organization after that, but I knew better than to believe they were done in Atlas City. The early attempts had been hasty, and they'd paid for that. Next time they'd be prepared, and it would take more than three dozen robots to flip the situation around.

As the strikes grew better organized, the rhetoric in the news ratcheted up to match it. Unsurprisingly there was no such thing as the 'free press' in Atlas. The Council had right of censorship for the 'national interest' at any time, and while it wasn't quite so bad that they had a representative in the headquarters of the major networks there were hints that a lot of backchannel permission-seeking was being had. Atlas News Network was the most watched and the oldest, and while the military had their fingers all up in there so far they'd been taking a pretty moderate stance. Worries were raised about violence erupting and argument was made that hurting the economy would hurt the Faunus as well, but overall the tone was merely disapproving. Atlas One News, the third most watched channel, largely followed their lead. It was the runner-up, Atlas Comcast, that spewed the vitriol. That had always been a given, because if ANN was the mouthpiece of the General Board then AC was the spokesman for the corporations. It was purely private, and the identity of the shareholders was not publically available information.

I knew, though. Because Marigold Company held a three percent stake in it, occasionally using the shows to shill its products through 'business guests'. I genuinely couldn't stomach watching AC in more than small doses, no matter how relevant it actually was. There were only so many times I could hear a frothing host go into a tirade about how the strikers were traitors trying to surrender Atlas to the Grimm before I felt sick just to hear the words. The word terrorist was thrown around quite a bit relating to the White Fang, and all I could think hearing it was that this was going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. There would be a point where the Faunus were so cornered they had literally nothing left to lose, and when that point was reached knives were going to come out. _And I need to be very, very far away from Atlas when it comes that_ , I decided.

My exit strategy was still nebulous, at the moment, but one thing remained crystal clear: I could not get involved with the military. The moment I did, the moment I became useful to the powers-that-be, I was fucked. There would be no getting away if I was of interest to the armed men running this show. And so I stuck to my answer when it came to Mother getting me to work on the operating system for the Atlesian Knight model, though the turning of the screws I'd expected never came. My access to the Network didn't get restricted. I wasn't forced to enrol in a school, or to spend time at company headquarters. For all that she'd seemed convinced I would give in, she'd yet to pressure me. I knew better than to think motherly sentimentality was staying her hand. She'd chosen to take another angle, and I'd yet to discover what it was.

XXX

Three months passed before I got out of the house again: Weiss' ten birthday had finally come. I'd gotten the usual red-inked invitation she sent whenever she insisted I show up at something, and I'd fully expected it. The 'birthday party' was going to be stacked with the children of her father's business partners, most of which she'd candidly admitted to me she couldn't stand. Already she had a way of sniffing out when people were more interested in her name than her person, a skill that would serve her well when she grew older and she became one of the most eligible girls for marriage in the whole of Atlas, if not Remnant itself. I still wondered at the strangeness of that, sometimes. That I'd ended up friends with what was pretty much a princess in all but name. Unthinkable, in the Old World. I'd had a different trajectory in this one, though, from the start to where I currently stood. Not all for the best. Regardless, Weiss had made it clear she expected me to be there and to have a snazzy gift. I'd debated getting her a game console, but there was always the chance that Jacques Schnee was literally able to kill people with his glares so it would be better not to risk it.

I'd settled on recording equipment instead, for her singing. Performances were all well and nice, but she should be able to have a track of her own songs made if she felt like it. To my relief it wasn't something Marigold Company made, so I'd avoided the faux pas of showing up at a party with a gift that had my family logo stamped on the side. Keeping whatever business our parents were involved in as far from the two of us as possible was my intention, and my record had been flawless so far. Hell, maybe Winter would even retract her implied threat to beat my ass black and blue if I kept it up. That the eldest Schnee daughter would be there was confirmed, largely by Weiss excitedly telling me she'd managed to take the time off Atlas Academy. I didn't think the school was all that lenient with family occasion vacations, but I supposed it paid off to be a Schnee now and then.

The airship ride to the manor was smooth, made even more so by Mother's absence. That had surprised me a tad, given that she usually never missed an occasion to mingle with the head of the SDC. I realized why shorty after Klein ushered me in, handling my coat personally even as others guests came in at the same time. I shot him an amused look from the corner of my eye. The butler had a way of making quiet little statements like that, on occasion, and he gave me a slight smile in answer. I _liked_ Klein. He had a quietly sardonic sense of humour. The spacious parlour where the children were received was already half-filled with guests, Weiss haughtily holding court by a sofa tastefully embroidered with the Schnee logo. There were a lot of things in the room: refreshments, entertainers and a table in the corner for Mother Schnee to entertain the parents with a glass of wine in hand. What there wasn't, though, was Jacques Schnee. Was he still at work? On a weekend? CEO hours, I supposed. He might just be showing up later. Still, the absence explained why Mother hadn't come along.

That she'd known of it in advance, though, did not bode well.

"Henry," Weiss called out, "you're finally here. Come sit with us."

There was just enough of a strain in her eyes that I didn't have the heart to refuse. For all the proper exterior, she did have a pretty short fuse and it looked like her little 'friends' were playing with matches already. This ought to be a fun evening, then. She made room for me on the sofa and I plopped myself at her side a mite awkwardly, immediately granted glares for it by at least four of the boys in attendance. Huh, some of them had tried to grab that seat before then. That felt like instructions from parents to get cosy with Jacques Schnee's daughter.

"Happy birthday, Weisscakes," I said, relying to the glares with a mild smile.

" _Henry_ ," she hissed.

"My apologies, Your Excellency," I grinned. "I am but an uncouth commoner, unused to the fancy ways of royalty."

"I will have you dragged out in the cold, Marigold," she warned.

I surrendered swiftly and stuck at her side after, at least for most of an hour. My only respite from small talk with ten year olds – which involved boasting about things they were bought or trips they took, mostly – was the occasional passing plate of refreshments, which I shamelessly plundered. At least one of the kids tried to give me lip, but I was very friendly in return and the confusion that ensued kind of killed his attempt. It was all mind-bogglingly boring and at last half my thoughts were elsewhere during, but if Weiss had to sit through that I supposed it was my duty as a friend to do the same. Reprieve came in the form of dinner, with separate tables in the dining hall for adults and children, and it was announced that Weiss would sing for the assembly afterwards. She didn't seem overly pleased about that, but neither did she contradict her mother. Ever the dutiful child, this one. They'd drilled that into her pretty hard. We were herded into an another hall – God, how large _was_ this place? – for the performance, and that was when I ran into Winter. I'd seen her at the edges of the party the entire time, but she'd avoided children like the plague. I was not above admitting I envied her that freedom.

"Marigold," she greeted me.

The two of us were hanging in the back as people moved to claim seats.

"Winter," I replied. "Always a pleasure to see you."

She fixed me with the kind of look one would reserve for a particularly insolent cockroach. Ah, well. Couldn't please everyone. She was a vision in her dress, regardless. I'd ever only seen her in her school uniform before, but now she wore a conservative but very fitting ballroom dress of pale blue. Nothing was bared but her collarbones and her arms, but the expanse of pale and perfect flesh was almost hypnotic. I looked away before my appraisal could turn into outright staring, for once glad I'd yet to hit puberty. That was going to be a hell of a mess when it reached me.

"You have no talent for socializing," Winter said.

"That's rich, coming from the Ghost of Sister Present," I replied, rolling my eyes.

Her own narrowed, and I realized with a wince there was no equivalent to A Christmas Carol in Remnant. I might as well have been speaking nonsense. I was usually good at keeping those kind of mistakes out of my mouth, but Winter had a way of unsettling me. She had knowing eyes.

"You wouldn't get the reference," I blandly smiled.

"I came for Weiss, not the children of Father's stooges," she said after a moment.

Just slightly defensive, by the tone of her voice. It was easy to forget that while she seemed a woman grown to me from my ten-year old height, Winter Schnee was actually only sixteen. Just a teenager, no matter how perfect her composure.

"Truce," I offered. "Let's smile and be the bestest of friends, at least for today. Neither of us came here to snipe, I think."

The white-haired girl raised her chin haughtily, but continued exposure to Weiss had pretty much inoculated me to the effect of that.

"Acceptable," she finally conceded.

As it happened, both of us had seats reserved in the front row courtesy of Klein. We settled down for the show, and after that the part went pretty smoothly. I didn't stick around long after the gift-giving, which went pretty well. Weiss seemed pleased by the equipment at least, after I explained what it was for. If there was one thing I enjoyed about being a Marigold, it had to be said, it was that I pretty much never had to look at the price tag when I bought something. It was hard not to enjoy wealth, even when you suspected it was ill-earned. I was in the second batch of guests to leave, my own choice, and the last thing I noticed before leaving that evening was that Jacques Schnee had yet to show. By the look on Weiss' face, I'd not been the only one to notice.

XXX

I was at my terminal tinkering with a personal project when Mother returned to Marigold House that night. I didn't go out to greet her, but the sound of the airship landing was pretty telling. In front of me, the holographic screen was covered with the sloppy skeleton of what might become Remnant Snapchat Ripoff ™ if I could get the fucking thing to work. The Network was finicky when it came to transmitting images, at least when you had only civilian access. The bare bones I had were functional on their own, but I couldn't get them to work properly when connected to the Network. For now, anyway. I was debating just scaling everything down to see if that worked any better. I'd eaten alone in my room with the screen in front of me, our butler chiding me quietly about destroying my eyes before turning on a few Dust lights when it got dark. I absent-mindedly thanked him, moving aside to let him take the plate. I'd been a while since I'd had a curfew, so my door remained wide open up until midnight with music blaring from the terminal speakers.

No one would give me any coffee – I knew it was bad for kids, but that didn't make me any more pleased about it – so I relied on sugar to keep sharp and awake instead, a half-empty bag of wrapped taffies never far from my hand. What shook me out of my work trance was the sound of an airship coming to our landing strip, and my eyebrows rose. I checked the time on the terminal screen. 12:43. A company emergency? No, that made no sense. They'd have called Mother instead of sending an airship. I was surprised enough to get off the terminal, locking the screen. I'd never taken off my party clothes entirely, which saved me the need to change out of pajamas, but I must have looked somewhat ridiculous to see. Black dress pants and a white button-up with a loose hoodie and fluffy slippers. I made my way towards the balcony, where I'd have a good view of the strip, and my eyebrows rose even higher at the sight of the landed airship. It had a snowflake emblazoned on the side.

The ruckus coming from the entrance hall confirmed we had guests and my puzzlement continued to mount. I headed there directly and found a handful of maids ushering in two people I'd seen not hours ago. The first was Klein. The second was Weiss, and looking at her I winced. Her eyes were red. She'd been crying, and I could see even at a glance that while she was putting on a brave face her composure was held together by a very thin string.

"Ah, Master Henry," one of the maids said, looking relieved.

She would be. Guests showing up unannounced at one in the morning would normally be shown the door, but these particular guests didn't come from a family a household maid would want to offend even a little bit.

"I've got this," I said. "Please wake Mother, if she's not still up."

She curtsied, a habit that still had me feeling vaguely guilty even having been literally been born to it. As she hurried away I turned back my attention to the visitors, and found the Schnee butler looking at me with a pained expression. He'd refused to let anyone take his coat, which had me frowning.

"Master Henry," he said hesitantly. "I apologize for the late hour but-"

Whatever he said I missed, because the moment Weiss saw me she was rushing into my arms and then she was bawling and _shit what was I supposed to do_?

"It's, uh, fine," I croaked out and awkwardly patted Weiss' back. "Emergency?"

He grimaced.

"Though I know it is very inappropriate to ask, but could Miss Weiss perhaps stay the night?" he said.

I currently had an armful of weeping Schnee, so refusing wasn't exactly an option even if I'd wanted to. Goddamn, though, what had happened back at their place?

"I'll take care of it," I said.

"Perhaps I'll speak to your mother?" Klein said.

Weiss' fingers tightened against my shirt.

"I'll take care of it," I repeated. "Should I have a guest room prepared for you as well?"

He slowly shook his head.

"I am needed back at the manor," he said. "Master Henry, I know this us much to ask but-"

"It's nothing," I said, patting Weiss' back. "Kids our age have sleepovers all the time, right? Nothing to worry about."

I was a little uncomfortable at the amount of gratitude I saw on the man's face at that. After another set of stilted apologies he retreated back into the cold, and as I gently guided Weiss to my room I heard the sound of the airship lifting off.

This, I thought, wasn't going to end well.


	8. Chapter 7

Weiss was dry-eyed by the time I had her sitting on my bed. She was visibly ashamed of her earlier outburst, and wouldn't meet my eyes. I sighed and tugged at my covers, wrapping them around her in a Schnee burrito that left only the white-haired head exposed. That she didn't even turn indignant at that was a sign of how bad a shape she was in right now.

"We don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to," I said.

She mutely nodded. I almost reached for the bag of taffy on my desk, but somehow I doubted candy was going to fix… whatever this was. I sat next to her on the bed, back against the wall, and said nothing. If she wanted to talk, we'd talk. Otherwise I could do silent support. I'd likely be better at that than the other thing.

"Father came home after the guests were all gone," she said suddenly, voice raw.

I glanced at her without turning my head. I had a feeling just the weight of my eyes on her would be enough to smother this conversation in the crib.

"Mother was angry," Weiss whispered. "They argued. They've argued before, Henry, but this was different. It was bad."

I would have clasped her hand, if it wasn't hidden away under the covers.

"They were both so _angry_ ," she said. "Then Father said he only married her for the Schnee name."

My jaws clenched. I'd had suspicions, but always tempered by the fact I knew my glimpse into the Schnee family was just that – a glimpse. A sliver of the whole. But there'd been signs. Her mother's drinking, the way he was never around whenever I visited Schnee Manor. I'd assumed the marriage wasn't a happy one, but this was past even my worst expectations.

"I must be the stupidest girl in the world," Weiss bitterly said. "Winter tried to warn me, before leaving for the academy, but I didn't believe her."

"He's your father," I said quietly. "You wanted to believe the best of him."

"And I was wrong," the girl whispered. "He never cared about any of us."

I wasn't sure that was true, not exactly, but now wasn't the time to have that conversation. Even if there was some sentiment behind Jacques Schnee, it couldn't be denied he was a prick of the highest order. That the parents argued I wouldn't cast judgement over, but that they'd dragged Weiss into it? That was another story.

"You heard the whole thing," I guessed.

Her hiccupped a sob.

"I couldn't not hear it," she said. "They were so loud the whole manor must have heard. I couldn't just stay there in my room, after that."

I winced. For a man as obsessed with appearances as her father to have gotten that indiscreet, he must have been beyond angry.

"I'm sorry," Weiss said. "You shouldn't have to listen to me."

"I'm not one for sweeping declarations on the nature of friendship," I said. "But being here on a night like this seems like _bare_ minimum. This isn't a chore, Weiss. You're my friend."

That got her weeping again, and I silently cursed myself. She half crawled out of the covers and I ended up with my arms around her, soothingly stroking her hair. It was late and she was exhausted: before long she'd passed out on my bed. I waited another half-hour after that, letting her get comfortable as my eyes remained on the time displayed on my clock terminal. When it felt like she was deep asleep enough she wouldn't wake easy, I slowly slid myself out of under her and replaced myself with a pillow. Tightening the covers around her, I lowered the lights until they were almost closed and closed the door behind me. I could take a guest room for the night. Waiting for me outside in the hallway a maid stood rigidly, and I didn't even need for her to speak to know what she was here for. I followed her to the restricted wing of Marigold House, keycard lock hissing open as we passed. The door to the solar was open and I found Mother behind the desk, pouring herself a finger of brandy in her nightdress. She'd been asleep then. Fuck. She wasn't going to be in a good mood.

"Henry," she greeted me. "Sit."

I did, and the door closed behind me with a quiet hiss.

"I am told the girl is asleep," Mother said. "We shall let her rest for another hour before sending her home. The airship is being prepped."

I blinked.

"You can't be serious," I said.

"Of course I am," she replied calmly. "By now that overly meddling butler will have returned to the manor. Jacques will know where his wayward daughter has gone."

"His daughter," I said sharply. "The ten-year-old child he traumatized badly enough she took an _airship_ to get out of that house."

"A ten-year-old child," Mother agreed softly. "But not _mine_. I have no stakes in this."

I bit down on my tongue to avoid asking her whether having a goddamn soul was enough of a stake. That wouldn't win me any ground, not with Bailey Marigold. If anything it would lose me some.

"You're providing a refuge for his daughter until his house is in order," I said instead. "That's a favour."

"Will he see it that way?" Mother mused. "I doubt it. He will want her returned, and discreetly. To do otherwise would damage my relationship with him, and so his relationship with Marigold Company. If there is gain to be had, Henry, it will be in complying with his wishes."

I took a deep breath. Getting angry was of no use here. As silence lingered I watched Mother's face and what I saw there had my blood boiling again. Not disdain, or impatience. Cold amusement and, if I was not misreading her, just a hint of expectations. She was not refusing outright, I thought. She was, just like she had with Ironwood, initiating a negotiation. And I knew exactly what she wanted. Without her outright saying it, I knew if I agreed to work on the Atlesian Knight project suddenly her objections would vanish. Because she would have made a gain more valuable to her than avoiding Jacques Schnee's temporary irritation. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to do this. God, I didn't want to do this and it was unfair that I should have to to make my own mother behave as a halfway-decent human being. But fair didn't come into this, just the facts. And the facts were this: either I gave Mother what she wanted, or in an hour I was going to wake Weiss and tell her she was headed back to the house she'd just fled.

It'd been easy, I thought, to have principles when they cost me nothing. Say I wouldn't be part of a machine I found distasteful when I lost nothing from making that stand. But now there was a cost, and a personal one. These were the weights on the balance: making something that very likely would hurt people I'd never met, or refusing and deeply hurting someone I knew. A child. I opened my eyes. I was not, I thought, a particularly good person. Just a person. I made the choice that didn't have me going back into my room and break the heart of a ten-ear-old girl.

"I'll remember this," I said.

"I expect you will," Bailey Marigold said, cold eyes approving. "I would be disappointed if you were leveraged the same way twice. Learn from this."

I gritted my teeth.

"Fine, I'll work on the Knight project," I said. "But I have two conditions. The first is that I get access to my accounts."

Mother's brow rose.

"You are a minor," she said. "It would be illegal."

"It's unpleasant when people are poor winners," I replied flatly.

She smiled, actually having the gall to be amused by my anger.

"Something will be arranged," she conceded. "And your second condition?"

"Weiss stays here as long as she needs to," I said. "Don't short-change me on this."

Mother gave me a considering look.

"I will have Jacques Schnee's personal number added to your Scroll," she said. "You can take up the matter to him yourself. Whatever accomodation you reach, I will not object to."

I ground my teeth but didn't push any further. My bargaining position wasn't good enough to get her to spit in the head of the SDC's eye on my behalf. My fingers clenched.

"How did you know?" I said. "That something would happen? There's only three months left before the proposal. Without tonight I would never have agreed and the deadline would have passed."

She laughed softly.

"If not this project, then another," she said, smiling. "You get attached too easily, Henry. It was only a matter of time until you handed me leverage."

The dark-haired woman sipped at her brandy, the amber liquid swirling in the crystal cup.

"Let this be a lesson," she murmured. "Love your family, sweetheart, and not another soul. Otherwise you will always, _always_ lose."

The shiver that went up my spine at that was entirely genuine. In the world with Grimm, a world where evil was visible and tangible thing out to get you, it was easy to to forget that in the end those creatures were just beasts. To do evil, you needed the ability to tell right from wrong. _But that doesn't even come into the equation with you, does it Mother?_ I thought. _There's family, then everything else is a spreadsheet._ I craved a cigarette, the sharp pang of an addiction left only in my head rearing up. I rose to my feet.

"I'll be taking up one of the guest rooms," I said. "You can send the project files into the terminal there."

She nodded.

"Good night, my dear," she smiled.

I didn't reply or acknowledge that in any way, allowing security to escort me out of the restricted wing. My Scroll chimed softly halfway to the guestroom and I unfolded the screen, easily finding the new contact that had appeared. Jacques Schnee, SDC. Like there was anyone else of that name who mattered. I waited until I was in the room to call and hooked the Scroll to the terminal. It rang twice before Jacques Schnee's face appeared on the screen. There was no sign he'd recently gotten in a shouting match on his face, composed as he was.

"I was expecting your mother," he said.

Skipping the courtesies, then.

"The matter was handed off to me," I replied.

"Quaint," he said, eyes cold. "When can I expect the airship to arrive?"

I didn't answer. His eyes got noticeably colder.

"That's not going to happen," I finally said.

"That," the man said, "was not the correct answer, child. Get your mother on the line. _Now_."

I swallowed. This was, I thought, not someone to fuck with. But I was going to have to, anyway, because clearly someone had dropped me on the head as a baby.

"I'm exhausted," I said. "So please forgive me if I'm blunt. I'm scared of you, because I'm not an idiot. But I'm not scared enough to fold, so why don't we just start from there."

"I will not argue about my daughter's care with a ten-year-old," he hissed.

"Mother's not going to answer tonight," I said. "So the ten-year-old is what you've got. And he's telling you Weiss is spending the night."

"Are you telling me you're refusing to return a girl to her legal guardian?" he said.

"Are you telling me you want this to be the talk of the city?" I replied, heart thundering in my ears.

God this wasn't brave it was stupid and I was going to get crushed, crushed so hard on my grave they'd write 'Here lies Henry Marigold, he fucked up real bad'. I steadied my breathing.

"Are you threatening me, boy?" he said, tone chillingly even.

"I'm telling you as a birthday gift I offered Weiss to teach her coding," I said, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. "Intensive course. It's why she's staying here for a little bit."

"And you think you're qualified to teach a Schnee anything?" he mocked.

"I coded Blossom," I said. "And though I never passed the official tests, I went through the Atlas Academy curriculum on the subject. On the whole, I'd say yes."

There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes, and there was my salvation. _That's right, I'm not a complete nonentity_ , I thought. _Please decide squashing me would make too much noise right now. Sandbag me over something else when no one's paying attention._ I held no illusions that a grudge would not be held over this, but if the retaliation could be delayed I'd live with it.

"You are boasting," he said.

"Yes," I said. "It's true anyway. I don't want to pick a fight with you, sir. It's be simpler on everyone to just walk past city limits until I find Grimm. But this is happening."

The attempt at flattery, I saw, had no effect whatsoever. I supposed trying while in the process of thwarting him kind of took away from the effect. He was furious, but he was also thinking. Weighing consequences, I decided.

"Three days," he said. "Her usual lesson schedule will proceed at your home. She is not to leave the premises under any circumstances and I will be sending security to look after her."

I nodded.

"Speak up, boy," Jacques Schnee ordered.

"Yes," I said.

"You will never speak a word of this to anyone, not even Weiss," the man added, almost conversationally.

There was nothing casual about the look in his eyes, though. The threat there was bared for me to see.

"Mother taught me the virtues of discretion," I said, trying to hide my relief.

My hands were shaking, but hopefully the angle hid them from his sight.

"She should have taught you not to overstep instead," Jacques Schnee said, tone sharp as a knife.

He cut the call and the screen went black. I collapsed into the chair, hands still shaking uncontrollably, and found I was on the edge of hyperventilating. I forced myself to breath in and out sharply until I was as close to calm as I could manage. I'd just made an enemy of the richest man in Remnant, and he had a reputation for keeping grudges. In the span of a single night, I'd burned two bridges I'd been trying to keep fire-free since I realized they even existed: working with the military and staying on the good side of the SDC. I could no longer afford for my exit strategy to be something handled in the future, I thought. Tomorrow morning I'd begin looking into my options. I closed the door to the guest room, only now realizing it'd been open the whole time, and collapsed fully clothed onto the bed.

I was asleep within moments.

XXX

I woke up after too little sleep and padded over to breakfast after a shower and change of clothes. I found Weiss already up and eating, looking adorably like a fish out of water in a fresh set of clothes of her own. Mother must have remembered to send for some, because I doubted we'd had anything her size in the house. She was visibly embarrassed when I sat with her at the table, the two of us alone in the room.

"Henry," she began, then stopped.

"Weiss," I teased. "Have some more eggs."

I leaned over and took the ladle, dropping another portion on her plate.

"I've had quite enough, thank you," she muttered.

The genuine irritation in her voice was refreshing, after last night. It was a step towards normality, however small.

"I'm sorry I took your room," she blurted out.

She was flushed, I noted.

"Did you know you snore?" I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

"I do not," she said.

"Like a Dust reactor," I lied. "It's a miracle you don't wake yourself up."

The bickering that ensued covered everything from my table manners – apparently the mouthfuls I ate were too large – to her hairdo being overly complicated, ending in a swing back to general lack of social graces so she could have the last word. She seemed in a genuinely better mood after, and no longer like hesitant kitten.

"I know what you're doing, you know," she finally said. "Thank you."

I winced. It was a dark day indeed when a kid saw right through me, however precocious.

"Yeah, well, if I ever run away from home I expect princely treatment," I said. "Seven course meal and a bathtub made of gold."

"Ass," she said, but she was smiling.

She'd already been told about the arrangement with her tutors before I woke, apparently, because she finished up her meal quickly so she would not be late for her fencing lessons. She'd gotten even more keen on those than usual since her sister awoke her Aura. Also a subject of fascination to me, that. She'd not manifested her Semblance yet, though she was supposed to have a family one – the Schnees had 'Glyphs', another thing thrown around as a sign of general Schnee superiority to the unwashed masses – but already she was stronger and faster than a girl her age had any right being. She could also take a hit, though I'd never seen that in person. Soul superpowers, huh. I had lessons myself before too long but I took my time eating after she left, enjoying the quiet after the mess that had been the previous night. Then my Scroll began to ring and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was an unknown number, not that it could have been otherwise: I had like four contacts in whole. Mother, Weiss, Marigold Headquarters and an emergency line. Five, I supposed, now that Jacques Schnee was on the list as well.

My number wasn't publically available, so I answered mostly out of curiosity. I rubbed the bridge of my nose after, when I found Winter Schnee's face glaring up at me.

"Good morning, Winter," I said.

"Where's my sister, Marigold?" she harshly said.

"She just left for her fencing lessons," I replied. "You can try to call her if you'd like."

"Her Scroll is off," the white-haired woman said through gritted teeth. "Bring me to her."

"Or," I suggested, "I'll ask her to turn it on and you can call her directly when her lesson's over."

"Are you hiding something?" she said, eyes narrowing.

"Yes, Winter," I sighed. "I abducted the daughter of the fucking head of the SDC and I'm holding her in my evil goddamn lair for ransom. Expect my demands any minute. Here's a spoiler: I want my own island, with a volcano on it."

This was about as civil as I was going to be if she kept this up. I'd had a confrontation with _Jacques Schnee_ last night over this. Sisterly love was a beautiful thing, but there was only so much shit I was willing to take from this girl.

"Watch your language," she said flatly.

"Why?" I said. "I'm in my own home. _I_ certainly didn't give you this number. How did you get it, actually?"

She didn't reply, face blank, and I leaned forward with a sharp laugh.

"Someone got into the private listings database, didn't they?" I grinned. "Why, Winter, that's _illegal_. For shame."

"At no point did I break the law," she got out through gritted teeth.

"Loopholes? That's criminal talk, Winter," I hummed.

"Enough," she barked. "You will take this Scroll to my sister."

"I was glared at by your father not even ten hours ago," I replied coldly. "A little noise isn't going to frighten me. I'll tell her to turn on her Scroll and that you called. That's all you get from me."

I couldn't quite figure out the expression on her face as she looked at me.

"This is not Father's notion?" she asked.

"It's not anyone's," I said, suddenly feeling tired. "It just happened, and now we deal with the fallout."

She peered at me and I got a good idea of what the animals at the zoo felt like, when some disapproving biology teacher told a crowd of students they were supposed to act differently.

"I cannot tell whether you are farsighted or genuine," Winter finally said.

"Hear that sound?" I said. "It's the sound of that bridge I set on fire last night. Farsighted's not in the cards."

"Time will tell, whatever you pretend," she said, outright ignoring me. "You are to notify Weiss of my call and tell her to turn on her Scroll."

I had, in fact, just told her I'd do that. But it hadn't been an order on her part before, so of course it had to be said again. I closed the call without warning, delighting in that second where her face was indignant before the screen turned black.

It was the small things that made life worth living.


	9. Chapter 8

I only needed to take one look at the Crowd Control project the military had handed over to civilian contractors to know why they'd passed it off. Atlas did have a promiscuous history of corporations and the generals hopping in bed for projects, but not usually for stuff this important. As far as I knew the original Atlesian Knight hardware and software had both been made in-house. But looking at the hovering schematics on the terminal, and the list of 'requirements' that came with them, I understood why'd they'd reached for outsiders. The two large chunks of work ahead were pure software: the IFF and the CID. _Identification Friend and Foe_ and the broader umbrella of _Combat Identification._ The General Board's stated requirements were hellishly complicated, by Remnant standards. On one hand I was glad the people running this kingdom hadn't thought it was a good idea to send in sloppily-programmed robots to break up riots, especially considering those robots were armed. On the other hand, I was now expected to make this work, and while I could see light at the end of the tunnel it was going to be a rough three months.

Marigold Company's specialists had begun work, but what I was looking at was… bloated. The Chain of Responsibility patterns were an aggressively maze-like slog. So far they'd tried to put the threshold for an object being considered 'hostile' as either someone attacking the platform or moving beyond a certain speed, but as things currently stood any car or airship passing within the Knight's sensor range would get tagged. I read a design note with a man's signature at the bottom, making a case for the CID being 'appearance-respondent'. He wanted to slap a fucking Faunus detector in there, because of course at least one person would suggest that. It was a good thing for him I didn't have firing rights, because he'd be out on the street right now. I began setting down the framework for weapons identification instead, then swerved to the side and began a responsibility tree defining different levels of 'hostile'. I wasn't getting any angry kid throwing rocks at the robot-cops tazed if I could help it. The least violence could be laid at my feet, the better, though I knew at this point morally speaking I was just playing semantics.

The work effectively took over my afternoons, and for all that Weiss currently lived in my house over the days that followed I saw relatively little of her. We both had lessons, her more than me, and while we ate together it was rare for us to actually share a room beyond that until late afternoon. I exited the programming interface, closed the monitor and made my way out of the work room that had been made available for me in the restricted wing. It was still restricted to me, pretty much: I was handed a keycard at breakfast and had to hand it back to security when I was done with work for the day. My idle attempt to find out how difficult it would be to forge one of those had led to answers varying from 'hard' to 'are you a professional forger? go home then'. I'd say this for Mother, she might be a ruthless amoral profiteer but her security was tight. I put down my keycard in the awaiting palm of the sunglass-wearing woman wearing a suit that stood by the last door, and politely wished her a good day. She nodded back, but didn't speak. She never did.

I found Weiss idling in one of the playrooms I'd had since the age of five but had never really gotten around to using. The few games I indulged in were on my bedroom terminal, and it wasn't like I ever had anyone over except this one. Speaking of her, I hid a smiled when I saw she was wearing a long-sleeved vest embroidered with the Marigold logo over clothes that had clearly been brought over from her own closet. Weiss Schnee had been raised a proper little lady – the forms of rebellion she engaged in were always subtle.

"Henry," she said, white-crowned head rising from her book. "You're done with your lessons?"

"Afternoon's work, more or less," I said, and grabbed a seat next to hers. "But yes. I wash my hands of further coding. If I'm at it any longer I'm going to start seeing the world like floating numbers."

"Your grasp on reality is feeble enough as it is," the girl told me, smirking. "Do refrain."

"Are you sassing me, Weisscakes?" I snorted. "I control the taffy stocks, Schnee. Beware of consequences."

"I wager if I asked your mother she'd get my own bag," the brat replied airily.

Of course she would, I thought. Bailey Marigold had not been shy about splurging to make an impression on Jacques Schnee's youngest daughter. She'd outright bought a piano and ordered a former guest bedroom turned into a music room for the sake of what would be exactly three lessons lasting no longer than two hours. Let it not ever be said that Mother was half-assed in her social climbing attempts.

"Don't you break my monopoly," I warned. "I haven't even begun abusing it properly."

I forced myself to sound amused, instead of vaguely appalled that my mother would not bat an eye at dropping a few thousand lien just have a kid my own age think well of her.

"I will consider mercy, for appropriate concessions," Weiss drawled haughtily.

I decided to distract her before she could actually set those out. That way lay me agreeing to come at playdates for SDC kids, and I wasn't going through that a second time if I could help it.

"What are you reading, anyway?" I asked.

The pointed look on her face made it clear she was not fooled in the slightest, but she was too polite to actually call me out. Ah, manners. They did make my life easier on occasion.

"Violet's Garden," Weiss said. "An assigned reading. Perhaps a bit too prosaic from my tastes."

"You mean dry as Vacuo," I cheerfully said. "Not enjoying the classics? For shame, Weiss."

"I've never seen you with anything but a technical manual in hand," she replied peevishly.

"Character assassination," I said. "I also read history books."

"At least you don't watch cartoons," she sighed. "If I have to sit through another conversation about X-Ray and Vav by my peers I will-"

"Silently repress your anger in a tight ball that will only erupt when you're a teenager?" I suggested.

The coldness of her glare implied I might have hit a little too close to him with that one. I hastily cleared my throat and put another tack on the conversation. It wasn't long after dinner, and after the meal – Mother attended, which stilted the conversation somewhat – we migrated towards my room. Door open, because Schnees were creatures of propriety. Mostly she finished her homework chapters while I tried and fail to tinker on my terminal. Mostly I ended up on the Network, following recent news. Rumours of the White Fang planning a large strike were floating around, but nothing concrete. After the shutdowns in Atlas City they must have been more careful about preparations.

"What are they complaining about this time?" Weiss suddenly asked.

I turned and found blue eyes staring at the very unflattering picture of Faunus protesters plastered by the article I'd been reading.

"Being unable to afford both food and the monthly Dust bill, I imagine," I said.

I almost added that the people on the image were miners, and that their conditions were by far the worst, but I bit my tongue. She was ten. All that she knew about mines was that her family company owned a lot of them.

"They're always making trouble," Weiss said. "Father says-"

"Your father says a lot of thing," I interrupted quietly.

I regretted it immediately. She looked like I'd slapped her and I grimaced.

"Weiss, I-"

"Don't," she said, voice rising over mine, "I've heard it all before."

I passed a hand through my hair, unsure where to go from here. I didn't exactly want to be the enemy here, but I wouldn't be doing anyone a favour by saying nothing at all.

"It's not a you problem," I said. "Or a me problem. It's an Atlas problem, and the Council's not doing great at solving it."

"Perhaps it would be easier if the vagrants didn't riot at every opportunity," Weiss snapped. "They should be glad to even _have_ jobs."

I drummed my fingers on the desk. I could say quite a few cutting remarks in answer to that, but what would that accomplish? Win an argument with a child, one only I was prepared to have of the two of us?

"I don't think there's a point in us arguing about this," I said. "Not until you've actually gone out and read up on it yourself. We're not talking about the same things, not really."

"Your mother would agree with me," the white-haired girl said.

"My mother," I replied tiredly, "says a lot of things too."

Her eyes went wide.

"Henry," she whispered.

"It's not like with you," I said.

 _Emotionally manipulative, if not outright abusive_ , I meant.

"It's just…" I trailed off, looking for the right words. "I got a reminder the box I live in isn't nearly as large as I'd like. And that trying to step outside of it has consequences."

"You can talk to me, you know," Weiss said.

"It's fine," I replied, waving it away. "Nothing worth talking about. I'll handle it."

The white-haired girl looked away, knees up against her chest as she sat on my bed.

"You never let me help you," Weiss finally murmured. "It's always the other way around."

Setting aside the fact that her sister would murder me with great relish if I got her involved in anything on my plate, I balked at the idea of relying on a kid on principle. We were the same age physically, but it couldn't be denied there was a gap. I still had my memories of the Old World, however vague. They weren't to be relied on, but they were a buffer of sorts just bye existing. I remembered being an adult, in bits and pieces.

"It's not stuff either of us could do anything about," I said. "Not until we're older."

Limpid blue eyes studied me.

"But when we are?" she pressed.

"Only one of us has Aura," I teased. "I'm clearly not going to be the brawn of this operation."

"Or the brains, for that matter," she replied without missing a beat. "That leaves only the load, Marigold."

Given how quickly and smoothly the putdowns came to her these days, I suspected I was being a bad influence. Still, I sighed with relief. Crisis averted. More or less.

"This is going to be my last night here," Weiss suddenly said.

Or not. Goddamnit.

"Yeah," I replied. "Sorry I-"

 _Was too scared of your father to try to press for more_ , my mind suggested. _That I_ _folded at the first sign of compromise on his part. Sorry you're going back to a house where the pretence there's a family living inside is going to be paper-thin._

"It is my home," she said. "This has been… pleasant, but vacations do not last."

"You can come back anytime you like," I said.

It was wrong, I thought, that a ten-year-old girl could look so bitter.

"I think my visiting rights will be restricted for some time, after this," Weiss sighed. "I will not escape without punishment, however discreet."

Yeah, I suspected I wasn't going to be welcome in Schnee Manor for the foreseeable future either. Not after the pleasant chat I'd had with her father.

"Then call," I said. "You've got my Scroll number."

She nodded firmly.

"Whenever I can," she promised.

I'd not considered until now she might be losing Scroll privileges for this stunt, but now that I thought about it it did seem likely. I wasn't the only one who'd taken a step out of the box, or who'd be facing the consequences of that. We stayed up late, after, both careful not to let the conversation turn to something that would have us arguing again. It wouldn't do to spoil what might be our last face-to-face for a while. The morning after I got up early to see her off, and waved at her from the strip when her family airship lifted off.

I would not see or hear from her for eight months.

XXX

The Atlesian Knight OS contract was known within the Marigold Company as the classified Project Toybox. Mother's dark sense of humour at work, I suspected. The original work schedule had the first draft of the software ready at the end of the fifth month, with the last before presentation being reserved for polishing and the marketing people to put their seal of approval. It didn't end up like that at all, mostly because of me. I never actually met any of the other employees in person, or actually went to a company work facility. I had access through an encrypted network to everything that was in the local terminals, and though I traded Network messages and notes with the others my name was never actually revealed. My handle within the project was that of 'Special Consultant', though some of my interactions with the employees hinted that it was known by some who was sitting on my side of the screen. Within the first week I'd consigned to the scrap heap about a month's worth of work by other people, which didn't exactly make me popular.

There wasn't much pushback aside from some passive-aggressive messages, to my surprise. Apparently someone had made it clear I was relatively high in the pecking order, because even the project lead took my 'suggestions' to heart. A month in, watching the work pile up on everyone because I'd pushed for a complete redesign and reboot from scratch for the IFF, I went to Mother and asked her to put my tutoring on hold until the project was done. She agreed without hesitation – her priorities were pretty clear. My hours were spent in that little work room, interrupted only by sleep, meal breaks and wandering the halls when I could no longer stand to be in front of a terminal. Occasionally I worried about Weiss never getting in touch with me, but there wasn't really anything I could do about that. No word from the Schnees at all, and when I tried to call Winter's Scroll I found the number she'd used to call me no longer existed. Clearly she was learning all sorts of things at Atlas Academy.

Even with my whole attention on Project Toybox, I didn't go anywhere close to where I wanted it to go. Four separate times we had to simplify the interface because of time constraints, and when it was suggested it was done on the CID as well I actually put my foot down and went to Mother, passing over the project lead's head. She was noticeably colder in our messages after that, but I got my way. I hadn't been sent to this project to make friends. Five months and two weeks was what it took before the 'draft' was done. We were cutting it very, very close. In my humble opinion the software was a clunky piece of shit with an object pool pattern twice as large as it needed to be, but the chatter from the others was excited. No one threw around epithets like 'revolutionary', but 'cutting-edge' did come up quite a bit. The only part I was actually proud of was the threat identification suite, and I'd let no one else code even a single number of that. As soon as the coding part was done I washed my hands of the whole thing. Hardware adaptation wasn't my problem, neither was polishing.

This was a proposal piece, anyway, not the final product. Just a fancy bit of work to impress the General Board. Mother hinted she wanted me to remain on the project if our workup was the one chosen by the military, but I turned a blind ear to that. I might agree, if I really needed something, but otherwise limiting my exposure was the highest priority here.

For a week after I was taken off Project Toybox I did absolutely nothing productive. If I'd been of age for it I would have gone for drinks, but being a prepubescent waste of space the best I could manage was lounge around like a potato. Mother tacitly allowed it, but after those seven days of bliss lessons resumed. I returned to my old routine and found Weiss' absence to be glaring. I'd not realized, until now, that she was basically the only person I saw that wasn't hired help or a blood relative. Marigold House was just a little colder, without her occasional presence. I started tinkering with Snapchat Ripoff again but progress was slow and my efforts half-hearted. It took me a while to put the finger on why. It went back, I realized, to that conversation I'd had with Mother in the solar. The one where she'd casually pulled out my unplayable strategy game. It'd been a reminder that I had no privacy. Odds were good that every single thing I did on my Scroll and personal terminal was logged somewhere for my mother to peruse at will.

The urge was there to try to make something like Incognito, software that would allow me to use the Network without being traced, but there was a problem with that: to make the damned thing, I'd have to use the terminal already being watched. I had no private bubble to do anything on. I had access to my own accounts – the quantity of lien in them surprising even if I'd already known I was wealthy – since Mother had kept up her end of our bargain, but her name was still on them. I couldn't spend a fucking penny without her knowing when, why and where. If I went on the Network and bought an airship ticket for Vacuo tonight, I'd find security waiting outside my bedroom tomorrow. The boundaries of my little world had never been so obvious, and it _chafed_. The worst of it was that I couldn't think of a solution. I genuinely had no other options than to stew in my discontent. I had a wild hope of asking one of the hired help to buy a Scroll for me, but I wasn't close to any of them and Mother paid their salaries – they knew who they needed to be on the good side of. I'd done this to myself, to an extent. I'd isolated myself willing and now there was no one willing to go out on a limb for me. In a way that made it sting even more.

I grit my teeth and bade my time. Though the idea of going to a prep school rankled me, especially now that I'd effectively graduated at least the first year of it through tutoring, I realized it might be my only way forward. It would get me out of Marigold House, at least, and that was the starting point to getting basically anything done. Twelve years old, typically, was when children entered either prep schools or combat schools in Atlas. I might be able to get in early, though doing that would draw attention and I'd still be too young to be let out of sight. The notion of waiting more than a year and a half still before doing anything about my situation rankled, but it might be the best way to approach this. I couldn't afford any mistakes here – I would not be given two chances to get out cleanly. I could begin to make plans, at least, though not to write them down. Disguising my efforts on the Network as a general interest in education, I tried to get a handle on my options.

Legal majority came at sixteen in Atlas, though weapons permits could be gotten younger if you were in a combat school or had the connections to get them. At that age I'd get full control of my accounts, though no shares of the Marigold Company. They'd been inherited by Mother after my father died, and though I was the legal heir for a controlling stake I wouldn't get anything while she lived. I couldn't count on the company for cash, then. Blossom was filling my pockets while I did nothing, so there was that. I could live comfortably for the rest of my life off the trickle of profits I got from that, but to actually be wealthy – like I needed to be if going to Mistral remained the plan – I'd need more. Since my only marketable skills were programming and engineering, that meant I'd need connections and something to sell. There was, of course, one problem with that. I'd recently pissed off the head of the SDC, and if the largest Dust company in the world was out to get me being in business of any kind was going to be very, very difficult. I'd need to think more about this, but I was hesitant to research too much on a watched terminal.

I was still weighing my options when, the day after the presentation before the General Board, I was told to head for my mother's solar after supper. She didn't need to say anything for me to know how it had gone: the triumphant look on her face was quite enough. Our proposal had been picked.

Now, I thought, things were going to get _complicated_.


	10. Chapter 9

After those strange three days where she lived with me, the next time I saw Weiss I'd already turned eleven. I'd hardly noticed, to be honest, and it might have passed me by entirely if I hadn't found a pile of presents awaiting me in the dining hall one morning. I didn't linger on it, or mark the day as anything more important than another milestone before I could get into a prep school without making waves. No communication had been forthcoming from the Manor since the… incident, and it was made quite clear how far we'd fallen in Jacques Schnee's eyes when my terminal got an alert about Weiss giving a performance again and I realized neither me nor Mother had gotten an invitation. Not to the show, and definitely not to the after-party. Not a very forgiving man, Weiss' father, and I doubted this was the fullness of the pound of flesh he'd get out of me for having refused him.

Seats to the performance could be bought, though. Not for cheap and there weren't many – she wasn't a pop idol, this was an upper class thing only – but I bought a ticket the moment they were made available for sale. It wasn't like lien were going to be a problem, and I very much doubted I'd be able to actually talk to Weiss I'd at least get to have a look at her. See how she was doing, as much as that could be glimpsed when she'd probably be going on the stage after half a day of makeup and dress-up behind her. I didn't get one for Mother, but found she had one anyway. Another tick on the 'likely keeps track of what I do on the Network' side of the column. It was a change not to be seated in the front rows, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the concert. She'd gotten even better, I saw. Weiss looked unearthly under the lights in her white dress, and very much in control of herself. I wasn't sure what I'd expected, knowing coming in I'd not actually see her up close, but by the end of the last song I was feeling vaguely disappointed.

She wouldn't even have seen I was there, with how the lighting was in the hall.

I wandered off after curtain fell, telling Mother I wanted to go the bathroom but mostly intent on stretching my legs somewhere that wasn't Marigold House. I'd vaguely hoped I'd run into another bunch of teens sneaking cigarettes, but no such luck. It was too classy a place for that, sadly. I found myself leaning against a windowsill, watching the snow fall down on the garden outside. It was oddly calming, but I couldn't quite bring myself to enjoy it. I'd be gone from here soon enough, having accomplished absolutely nothing. The alcove where I stood was slightly out of the way so I judged I'd have a while before Mother's people found me, but as I heard footsteps approached I sighed. They were getting better.

"Just a minute," I said without turning.

"I do not have one to spare," Winter Schnee replied flatly.

My brow rose and I turned to look at the white-haired teenager. She'd gotten taller since I last saw her, though no harder on the eyes. The shiny grey dress made that quite evident.

"Winter," I said. "I'm not even being sarcastic when I say it's good to see you."

"A sentiment unshared," she bit out. "What did you think was going to happen, slighting Father as you did? And now Weiss pays for it."

I forced myself not to get irritated. There were more important things to talk about.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Confined to the house," Winter said bluntly. "Klein escaped being fired only because of Mother's intervention, but he was still demoted and she believes it to be her fault."

"That doesn't sound great," I winced.

"How eloquently put," she sneered. "As for the rest, you can ask her yourself."

"I would if I could," I replied flatly.

She pressed a small, SDC-issue Scroll into my hands.

"The number is marked as mine in her Scroll," Winter said. "She will be able to use it on occasion, when scrutiny slackens. You are not to initiate a call under any circumstances."

"Thank you," I forced myself to say.

She was being deeply unpleasant about it, but there was no denying she was doing me a favour. Not that I was under the delusion this was in any way for my sake. The older girl's face was hard, when she looked at me after, but it softened by the barest fraction.

"Your intentions," she said, "were not unkind."

And then the frost was back.

"But you should learn not to pick battles you cannot win, Marigold," Winter Schnees said. "Lest others keep paying for your weakness."

And without further ado, she walked away. After that pretty harsh parting line the urge was there to call out something after her, but in the end I bit my tongue. It wouldn't do to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse was being a real asshole about the whole thing. Still, though. Atlas Academy was not doing wonders for her general demeanour. I sighed and hid away the Scroll under my shirt. After a moment, though, a smile quirked my lips. I'd gotten more than just a way to talk with Weiss out of this, after all. I had a Scroll that wasn't under watch.

A lot of doors had just swung open, all of a sudden.

XXX

Less than a month later, I found our butler waiting outside the study room when my daily tutoring ended. I was ushered into Mother's solar without ceremony, my eyebrows rising all the while. It was early afternoon: I'd expected her to be at company headquarters until supper. Bailey Marigold was not a woman I'd ever found easy to read unless she was allowing me to, so as I studied her face after sitting down I found I had no idea what kind of a conversation this was going to be. It'd been a few months since Project Toybox – now renamed Project Chivalry within the company - was given the green light by the General Board, but after my initial refusal to get involved in the final product she'd not pressured me. There'd been the occasional question over dinner about Snapchat Ripoff, the implication behind them being that I was allowed to keep my foot out of military work so long as I was cooking up something useful, but when I'd told her progress had run into a bottleneck she'd not pushed. Now though, as I watched Mother pour herself a finger of brandy with a steady hand, I wondered if that was about to change.

"Chivalry has attracted attention," she said, and sipped at the amber liquid.

I didn't reply. Technically, I'd ever only been involved in Toybox. This should have nothing to do with me. It was also pretty clearly about to.

"Your wear your opinions openly, regardless of your quiet," Mother noted.

I schooled my face into a blank mask.

"Better," she said approvingly. "Your composure is already unusual in one your age. This will not draw further comment."

 _I don't want to learn this_ , I thought. _I don't want to become like you, always measured. It's an ugly way to live._ None of it showed on my face. This round, I supposed, went to her.

"A man called Doctor Gepetto Polendina was brought in to give his opinion on the software," Mother said.

"Never heard the name before," I admitted.

"Neither had I," she said. "I had him looked into. All funding for his research has come from the black budget for the last decade."

I choked.

"Classified ops?" I said.

"I talked with my contacts in the army," Mother said. "They did not even have sufficient clearance to find out the level of classification given to his work."

Well, _shit_. That was more than a little ominous.

"Doctor Polendina expressed great interest in the threat identification suite of the software," Mother continued. "To the extent that he requested a meeting with the consultant that is entirely responsible for coding it."

I should have known, I thought, that insisting on that would bite me in the ass.

"I'm a minor," I said. "They can't interview me without your approval. Unless it's a matter of national interest – _God_ , please tell me this isn't a matter of national interest."

"It is a simple request, at the moment," Mother replied. "But given his… position, not one to lightly decline. That aside, the Doctor's interest itself drew attention from the newly appointed liaison for Project Chivalry. You've met him before."

"It's General Ironwood, isn't it?" I grimly guessed.

Bailey Marigold smiled thinly.

"He's requested an interview as well, though without specifying a reason," she said.

"I would give a lot," I frankly said, "to go to neither those interviews."

"Henry," she said evenly. "This is not a trifle with the Schnee family that can be smoothed over by some business concessions. Headmaster Ironwood is second only to the Council in influence. Doctor Polendina has, as far as I can tell, a yearly budget close to Marigold Company's entire profits. Even if I were so inclined, refusal would leave a black mark on our reputation."

" _I_ could leave a black mark on our record," I hissed. "If I'm getting bartered like a-"

I breathed out, schooled my face into calm. Anger never led anywhere with Mother. She had a strong disdain for those who led emotions dictate their actions.

"You will go," Mother said. "You will behave, and you will answer their questions."

"There's a lot of 'you will' in there," I said. "But I've yet to see anything motivating me to actually do it."

"Connections to such influential men," she said, "might see Jacques Schnee forgive you for that unpleasantness last year."

I hesitated, but hidden away in my room was the Scroll I'd been given by Winter. Would this have been enough to tempt me, if it wasn't there? Maybe. Having the head of the SDC consider me useful enough not to fuck over at a later date was attractive too, regardless of Weiss. But I could live with the way things were, right now. Weiss hadn't called me yet but after eight months of radio silence I could live with waiting a while longer.

"That's not going to work twice," I said. "Leverage's spent."

"Good," she said, radiating what passed for motherly approval with her.

 _So_ , I thought, _what's it going to be?_ Carrot hadn't worked, so now it was the turn of the stick. Shackles back on my Scroll and terminal? For a rich kid, I didn't actually use all that much stuff. It wasn't like taking away video games was going to convince me to cosy up to the military.

"If you want to be treated as a normal child," she said, "that is your right. Your tutoring will continue as arranged, but your access to the Network will be terminated and your programming interfaces removed."

I blinked. She was, I thought, giving me exactly what I wanted. Except for the Network thing, but I might find a way around that eventually. Wait, programming interfaces removed?

"There's no need for the last," I said. "I can still do civilian software."

"Oh no, sweetheart," she said, smiling as a slow flick of her wrist sent the brandy in her glass swirling. "If you want to be treated as any other boy your age, it will be in full. No adult work at all."

My fingers clenched. This. This actually fucked me, didn't it? If I no longer had access to advanced education, to platforms that allowed me to make useful and lucrative things, I no longer had a cushion when I tried to leave Atlas. Whatever skills I'd still have would be out of date and rusty. Enough to live off, maybe, but not _comfortably_. Certainly not enough for the easy life in Mistral. That meant living in one of the large cities of the four kingdoms, which had… issues. Security, for one. I'd be within reach of anyone who wanted to grab the heir to Marigold Company, for ransom or blackmail. And half a dozen other little things that, while not deal-breakers, would be inconvenient to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Culture gap, or living space or… Appeal to comfort, I thought. That was what she was doing. Either that or she genuinely believed I couldn't go too long without tinkering, and I was afraid she might actually be right about that. I'd spent nearly all my free time doing it for years, now. Habit was a powerful thing, and the thought of being cooped up in this house with nothing to do was horrid.

But getting having two face-to-face meeting with General Ironwood, before hitting twelve? There was no way that didn't get me in a file somewhere as a person of interest. As for the Polendina guy, I had no idea what he worked on but for someone whose funds came out of the black budget to be interested in me would raise flags. How bad, though? Practically speaking, how much of a problem would this be? I'd still be a civilian and a minor. I had no real combat training aside from some self-defence classes and no Aura. I wasn't going to get conscripted over an interesting bit of code, even if it had been legal. My instinct was always to avoid contact with these types at any cost, but if I went and just eased away their interest it might not be so much of an issue. Not good, certainly. But would it be worse than the alternative Mother had put before me? There was, I thought, a chance she was bluffing. But was I willing to take that bet? I looked in Bailey Marigold's pale brown eyes and found no hint of her thoughts. _Fuck_. No, no I wasn't.

"I'll arrange for them to both take place on the same day," Mother said. "That will be all, Henry."

I did not contradict her. I got out of that room with my tail between my legs, wondering if this was what it felt like to dig your own grave.

XXX

I'd expected quite a few things of Doctor Gepetto Polendina, but that he'd look like every kid's favourite grandfather wasn't one of them. He just looked so _nice_. Messy tufts of white hair, thick rectangular glasses and a rich white moustache, all atop the frame of a man who wasn't fat but clearly out of shape and probably had never been called fit once in his life. A voice in the back of my mind kept blaring _funded entirely by the black budget_ , but it was hard to take it seriously when the man looked one oven away from handing a plate full of cookies. He'd spent the entire first half-hour of our 'interview' asking about me and my life like it was the most interesting stuff in the world, not at all put off by my vague answers.

"James told me you're the artisan behind Blossom as well," Doctor Polendina beamed over his glasses.

Him calling someone of General Ironwood's rank _James_ would have been enough to keep me uncomfortable even if the room we were in wasn't basically an interrogation hole without the one-way glass to the back.

"My first large project," I said. "Didn't expected it to make this much of an impact."

Half a lie. I mean, I'd ripped off Facebook. There'd been a certain expectation. I was still slightly disbelieving it had been so popular, though. There was talk of expanding to other kingdoms soon.

"I've found it's always that way with innovation," the Doctor said sagely. "I never expected my work to interest the General Board, but _swish_ the funding came."

I was very careful not to ask about what exactly that work was. Whether he was dangling that bait in front of me willingly or not I couldn't be sure, but what I did know was that being in the loop for something that heavily classified would see me bound to Atlas for the rest of my life. Pass. Propping up the Atlesian house of cards wasn't the way I was going to spend this life.

"Ah, but I meant to ask you about that nice piece of work in the operating system for the new Knight models," Polendina said, sounding like he'd really just remembered that. "The threat identification suite, it was all yours?"

"Yes," I reluctantly admitted.

"I only ask, young Henry, because it is quite similar in nature to something I am working on," he said, peering over the rim of his glasses. "Very hush hush, initial stages I'm sure you understand. But it is complicated work, needless to say, and I found the coding languages of Atlas to be quite insufficient."

Oh, did I not like where this was going in the slightest.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said.

"I made my own, you see," the Doctor affably said. "And while your work is in Mantle Objective that suite you made it was… reminiscent. Not the same language said, but almost like the syntax was the same. Fascinating to study."

I couldn't exactly say that the way I worked was informed by half-baked memories from previous life, so I just smiled blandly. Had he just said he'd made his own coding language, though? I supposed someone had to make those, but it was still impressive _. Funded entirely from the black budget_ , the voice reminded me. I couldn't get suckered by the niceness, the man was all sorts of trouble. I thanked him for the compliment and there was light chat after, until Polendina cleared his throat.

"I understand you are quite young," the Doctor said. "And your schooling incomplete. But have you considered your options for employment, when you come of age?"

The bland smile came back.

"I expect I'll be working in the family company," I said.

He seemed surprised.

"Oh, I'd quite forgot you were from one of _those_ families," he said, coughing embarrassedly. "Yes, yes. You should consider the military anyway, Henry. The pay is quite good and the work always interesting. The project I undertook will not be finished for years yet, you might be able to work on it. Fresh eyes are always welcome."

I replied as vaguely and politely as I could, never actually refusing. He seemed wryly amused at that, but I was eleven. I could get away with it. With a friendly pat on my shoulder he ended the meeting, wandering off in the belly of the Atlas military headquarters. An aide was waiting by the door and offered to take me to the cantina for a meal – it was nearing noon – but I declined. The sooner I could get this over with, the better. I waited half an hour outside General Ironwood's office, though thankfully on a chair this time. When the door opened it was to amicable laughter, and I saw the headmaster of Atlas Academy escorting out a familiar face. Jacques Schnee paused when he saw me sitting, eyes hooded. There was nothing genuine about the friendly smile he directed at me.

"Henry Marigold," he said. "It's been some time."

"President Schnee," I replied, inclining my head.

"Are you lost, my boy?" he asked.

"Come off it, Jacques," General Ironwood said smilingly, looming tall in the doorway. "He's here for an interview with me."

It'd been what, three or or four years since I'd last seen him? Time had basically passed the man by, he was still the living incarnation of every Atlas Army recruitment poster.

"I never new you wanted to be a Huntsman, Henry," Weiss' father said. "Enjoy a little scuffle, do you?"

I could almost admire the way he could carry out a private conversation with me while still seeming perfectly friendly in Ironwood's eyes. Almost. Could I play the same game? Yes. Would I? Oh, God no. I'd already pissed this man off quite enough. I wasn't going to add fuel to that fire, no matter how much of a prick he was. Winter might have inherited her father's bedside manner, but she'd had a point when she'd chided me for picking a fight I couldn't win. There was no gain in me antagonizing Jacques Schnee further, so it looked like I was just going to roll over and take it. It was something of a pattern, lately. Not my favourite year so far.

"Never been any good at fighting," I said politely. "I'm actually not quite sure why I was asked here, sir."

"I'm a headmaster as well as a general," Ironwood laughed. "Talking with promising young men is part of the job."

I schooled my face into something pleasant. Screaming that I wanted absolutely fuck all to do with Atlas Academy, uniform-churning factory that it was, might not be received very well by this particular audience.

"Promising, yes," Jacques Schnee said, watching me with measuring eyes. "I'll leave you to it, James. Have a pleasant afternoon, Henry."

"The same to you, sir," I smiled.

If I kept faking those, my teeth were going to start hurting. Jacques Schnee made his exit and General Ironwood silently moved his bulk out of the doorway, gesturing for me to enter.

There had to be, I mused as I got up, at least a small chance this would end well. Right?


	11. Chapter 10

I watched General James Ironwood and kept my face stuck in a pleasant smile, everything I'd managed to dig up about the man drifting to the surface. Humble origins, working class parents. Enlisted young so he could get a scholarship for the still-young Atlas Academy, graduated with distinction and covered himself in glory ever since. Youngest general ever appointed to the General Board, and his combined service records as both a Huntsman and a military man had made him a shoe-in for his appointment as headmaster of Atlas Academy a while back. Rumour had it he'd been one of the first members of the program that since became the Atlas Special Operatives, but nothing substantial. He was pretty much the face of the military in the kingdom, these days, and a very popular one. His ties to a lot of first-tier corporations ensured he remained in the limelight, and pretty much always in a good way. Public advocate for the greater use of androids in the armed forces, and also for the further build-up of the Atlesian air fleet – there were a dozen vids on the Network of him pushing the image of Atlas as an 'international peacekeeper and protector'.

Up close, he was a looming presence. Deep blue eyes, chiselled jaw and black hair with temples starting to turn grey. Larger than life, like he'd just walked out of an action movie and left behind a hole in the shape of a reasonable-but-stern-commander. Unlike Jacques Schnee, I would not consider him someone actively out to screw me. But, watching as he sat behind his desk and offered me a friendly smile, I decided that whatever good intentions the good general had might actually be more dangerous. Elder Schnee was a ruthless profiteer, but as long as I stayed out of his way and didn't own anything he wanted he'd ignore my existence. Ironwood, though? He had a reputation for pulling talents into Atlas Academy. A location I was determined to avoid like the proverbial plague.

"There's no need to be nervous, Henry," the general said. "You're not in any trouble."

I nodded slowly.

"I'm, uh, glad to hear that," I got out when the silence stretched. "General. Or Headmaster? I'm not sure what the proper address is here."

It was technically against the Vytal Treaty for a kingdom to directly appoint the headmaster of a Huntsman Academy. Nominations like that were supposed to be handled in-house to maintain independence. Atlas had gotten around that by stressing the point that headmaster and general were two different titles, independent of each other. That nearly every headmaster since the Great War had also had a seat on the General Board was just a happy coincidence, and in no way a conflict of interest. Really. It must be true, because the news always said so.

"I'm here today as headmaster of Atlas Academy," Ironwood laughed. "I know this is a little early for an interview, but I like have a face-to-face with promising talents."

"I'm flattered, sir," I lied, "but I have no combat training. I'm pretty much as civilian as it gets."

And would remain so, if I had anything to say about it. Odds were I'd learn to use a gun at some point – in Remnant knowing how to use one of those was just common sense – but that was about as far as I'd bend on the subject.

"The Academy doesn't only train Huntsmen," he reminded me. "It is the finest institution of learning in the kingdom."

 _You're right_ , I thought. _It also trains officers and military researchers._ It wasn't that I doubted the education that would be provided there, it was just that nearly every graduate from the place came out wearing a uniform. I got the urge to quip that white just wasn't my colour, but I bit down on that.

"I'll keep that in mind," I blandly said.

I wasn't nearly as good at keeping my thoughts away from my face as I thought I was, I realized with a sinking feeling as the general sighed.

"You strike me as a young man with strong convictions, son," Ironwood said.

 _I consciously wrote a program that's going to get people hurt so my friend wouldn't be sent back to witness the failing marriage of her parents_ , I thought. _I'm in this goddamned office because given a choice between being in the dark for years and coming under your crosshairs, I went with what was most immediately comfortable to me._ Principles had been checked at the door a whole back. What I had left was indignation that felt a little hollower every time I gave in. Clear blue eyes sought mine and I forced myself not to look away. That would just make me look like I had something to hide.

"We need people with those in the service," he said. "Now more than ever."

I appreciated that, at least, he wasn't pretending this was anything but a pitch for me to put on a uniform and disappear in some classified research facility after graduation.

"Can I ask you a question, sir?" I said.

"Of course," Ironwood replied.

"The Knight 160 models," I said. "Where will they be deployed?"

I'd expected him to grow irritated at that. At the backhanded statement I was making. But James Ironwood only looked tired, and a little sad.

"You know the answer to that," he said.

"I think there's a lot of good about Atlas," I said honestly. "It's the only kingdom that's actually trying to solve the big problems or Remnant instead of just… coasting along. But I also think it's been made a deeply unpleasant place for a lot of people to live."

 _And you're asking me to be part of that_ , I didn't say. I didn't need to. I'd consistently gotten an edge on my peers by relying on Old World memories, but at the end of the day I was only so clever. The man across from me had genuinely earned all his accolades.

"I had a conversation with someone you know, a few years back," Ironwood suddenly said. "About what it really means to serve Atlas."

I frowned. Someone I knew? Doubtful it was Weiss, and the phrasing was a little weird if he was talking about Mother – not to mention that she was, overall, about as patriotic as a school of sharks. That left who? God, now that I was considering my social life it was a little sobering to realize I basically knew nobody and that most my acquaintances were all from the same family. _Ah_ , I thought. _Winter_. She was the one attending the Academy, I really should have thought of her right away.

"I have a genuinely hard time imagining that conversation," I admitted.

Then again I was an upstart brat not good enough to hang around her sister, and Ironwood was one of the most powerful and respected men in Atlas. I had a feeling the overall tone of interaction there might be different. The general chuckled.

"She's a very proud girl," he said. "Talent has a way of bringing that forward in people."

I kept up a smile, unsure of where this was supposed to lead. It wasn't like I'd ever had any real control over this conversation, but now I was confused as well as powerless. All in a day's work.

"Change," General Ironwood said calmly, "real change, it doesn't come from outside. It's long, slow work and it's not pleasant. But someone needs to do it, and it starts with putting on a uniform. In believing in something larger than yourself."

 _Sure it does_ , I thought _. Only when it's from the outside in, you call it revolution instead of reform._ The heart of the Atlesian military's headquarters weren't exactly the place to speak that out loud, though. And though revolution might be the only way the kingdom ever stopped grinding its lower classes into lien, it wasn't a pretty thing. Revolutions usually got a lot of people killed, and in Remnant even more than usual. I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to reply, but the dark-haired man raised his hand.

"Think about it, son," he said. "That's all I ask."

That was pretty much the end of the conversation, and he had me escorted out where the family airship was awaiting. I settled in a seat by the window and watched the headquarters grow smaller and distant as we returned to Marigold House. This, I thought, hadn't exactly unfolded as I'd expected it. The unspoken invitation to Atlas Academy yes, but the rest? Doctor Pollendina wasn't anything like I'd supposed he would be, and my take on Ironwood seemed like it might have been wrong. Either that or he was an exceedingly skilled liar, which was certainly possible. But if he'd been honest… Well, there was someone high up in Atlas who realized things couldn't continue as they were. More than just high up – arguably the most powerful man in the kingdom under the Council, since he was both headmaster and on the General Board. _A very powerful man who is gathering the most talented and well-connected children in Atlas before overseeing their education for a few years._ My fingers clenched. I was being paranoid, I thought. But the real question in the Kingdom of Atlas had never been if you were paranoid.

It was – were you being paranoid _enough_?

XXX

I was already using the Scroll that Winter smuggled me when Weiss called. Now that I had access to the Network that wasn't under watch I'd begun seriously researching Mistral and the kind of means I'd need to live there. The lien I got from Blossom would set me up comfortably, as I found out, but no as much as well as I would like. The platform was a product of Marigold Company, so while it was lining my underage pockets the real profits were actually going to the shareholders. Of which I was one, but my personal shares were minimal. The real controlling interest – and the cash going with it - I'd only inherit after Mother died, so I couldn't count on it to bankroll me. The patent was in my name, at least. If stuff got ugly down the line I'd have that on my side, but there wasn't really such a thing as international law in Remnant. Both trade agreements and inter-kingdom disputes were handled by the respective Councils, usually with arbitrage by a kingdom not involved in the point of contention. Inside Atlas, I'd lose. That much was a fact. I didn't have the connections and I wasn't willing to do the things that would allow me to gain them.

I was going to need to plagiarize the Old World some more, it looked like, and with Snapchat Ripoff turning out to be pretty unfeasible that meant looking for another project. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but at least it would keep my hands busy. The number that appeared on the Scroll screen didn't have an ID, but I there was only one person who know it so I was already smiling when I accepted the call. Weiss' pale face immediately appeared and it honestly felt like a breath of fresh air after all the recent messes.

"Your hair's gotten longer," I said.

The eleven-year-old girl's eyes narrowed.

"We haven't spoken in almost a year and that is the best you can muster, Marigold?" she said. "A comment on my _hair_?"

I grinned. Ah, it was good to have her back.

"Hello, Weiss," I said.

She called me an unmannerly dimwit a few times, but there was no real heat to it. She looked good. Lonely, but then when wasn't she? Her lessons were going well, she was excited about her next concert – though she flatly denied that when I teased her about it – and Winter would be back at the manor for the break so she was chipper as a bird about that. We carefully stepped around mentioning anyone else she was related to, her father most of all. Five minutes was all she could spare without risking being noticed, but before the call ended she told me she wasn't being watched over as closely now and she should be able to get in touch more often. She kept to that promise in the months that followed, stealing away a few minutes every two days. It wasn't until I found myself keeping those evenings free in advance that I realized how lonely I'd been getting myself. It was kind of a bitter thing to admit, that calls from an eleven-year-old were probably the best part of my week.

Project Chivalry trudged on without me, and no one from the military ever sent for me again. Thank God. I finally shelved Snapchat Ripoff for good and spent a while screwing around aimlessly before I decided on the next golden egg I'd steal from the metaphorical nest. The Network had video capacity, that much was obvious by the way calls on Scrolls were effectively videoconferences whenever people wanted them to be. Older Scrolls did not have the capacity to record, but the more recent ones did and that was what I focused on. There were pictures on the Network and movies as well – though surprisingly little piracy, as there was heavy oversight from the government and any site that would enable that was immediately shut down – but it was again showing that on Remnant the equivalent of the internet was still far behind in the social aspects. Something about development priorities, I suspected. The Grimm and even just the existence of Dust meant everything developed along different paths. More than that, Atlas before the Great War had basically banned arts and culture.

That'd been lifted since, though the people here would never be quite as free in their expression as those of Vale or Vacuo, but that decades-long shut down had still caused atrophy. It meant, though, that the kind of civilian platforms I remembered from the Old World were well ahead of the curve. It wasn't, I was beginning to understand, that something like Blossom had been ground-breaking software. For fuck's sake, there were basic AI handling connections for the CCT between kingdoms. Far beyond what I could do. But all these cutting edge advances, they were usually military or pioneer tech. Civilian stuff was fairly neglected, in comparison, and I had the benefit of having more than Atlas to draw on. Out-of-the-box thinking, in an ironically literal way. So, putting aside the increasingly more modest qualms I had about stealing concepts from the Old World, I officially began to work on Remnant Facebook Ripoff ™, also known as Project Placeholder Name. I was just a font of creativity.

I buried myself in the work with the strength of boredom and mild obsession. The framework I managed within two months, but after that stuff got complicated. And in part out of my hands. There'd be a need for servers to host this, and I couldn't exactly build those in my bedrooms between lessons. Making the interface anything other than a confusing and clunky mess was the real trouble, though. I went through seven different iterations before I managed what was objectively inferior product to what I remembered. It no longer looked like an AI had coughed its guts out on a scrollbar, though, so there was that. It was good enough to present to Mother, though at this point she wasn't even pretending to bother she wasn't keeping an eye on the project as I worked.

"Outside corporate entities and the military, there has never been such a large repository of data as what you propose," she mused over a glass of brandy as I sat across from her in her solar.

"That's the point," I said. "Anyone can add to it. And the larger the library gets, the more people visit it."

Bailey Marigold smiled.

"I grasp the concept, darling," she said. "It would be more dependent on popularity than Blossom, but should it gather steam the dividends might be even greater. The legalities of it are still grey, unfortunately. I will need to test the waters."

I nodded. There were other thorns to the rose as well. I had no idea how to implement streaming, for one. And it had become obvious there would be a need to install software on terminals and Scrolls before they could actually use the platform properly – a plug-in to actually make it work. I couldn't get the vid quality up to what I wanted it to be either, not even after near six months of tinkering with it all. On terminals it just fucked with the interface, but I'd actually glitched my Scroll a few times. Ah, well. It wasn't like the platform wouldn't be passing through the tender hands of Marigold Company for revision before coming out.

"This won't be like Blossom," I said.

Mother's brow rose and she silently invited me to elaborate.

"If I keep making things, I want them to actually be mine," I said.

"You are a minor," she said.

By which she meant, as my guardian legally speaking she made decisions in my name. Including what happened to whatever I made.

"I'm not being unreasonable," I said through gritted teeth. "I made this. Not the company. It didn't help, either. By all means it can profit off it, but the distribution should be skewed accordingly."

"The company," Mother stated calmly, "paid for the terminal you used. For the education that allowed you to do so."

"And so it gets to own my every idea until I die?" I replied, the word feeling more than a little hypocritical.

I stuck to them anyway. Guilt wouldn't get me anywhere, much less to Mistral.

"This argument is pointless, if the legalities forbid development," Mother finally said. "We will finish this talk after I've made inquiries."

It wasn't an outright refusal, and that meant there was room to negotiate. This was all, as it turned out, legal. Or made so. There were advantages to being part of the ruling clique, even if the clique was robber barons and a military junta. I didn't get what I'd asked for, but what I did get was a distinct improvement. I got ceded a direct percentage of the profits, to be placed in a corporate account I did not have access to. The contents would be invested in my name and I'd get control when I reached majority. I suspected the lien would be directly reinvested in Marigold Company, but I could live with that. It wasn't the liquidities I'd hoped for, but investments could be sold if it came to that. 'Sepal' was the name the marketing people came up with, to link with Blossom in the creation of a Marigold brand. There was hope, I was given to understand, that the company would create a whole suite of platforms like this to take control of the newly-discovered niche. Joy. Two months later the platform came out, right on the tail of my twelfth birthday, and if the starting numbers were any indication it was going to be a lucrative business. At the closing of the first week, two invitations were sent to Marigold House for Weiss Schnee's next concert.

In Atlas, money talked loudest of all.


	12. Chapter 11

I chewed half-heatedly on my toast as I watched my Scroll's screen, paying more attention to the news than the meal, the volume on the ANN report turned up to the maximum.

"We are now on the second day of the general strike in Mantle, with no resolution in sight," the newscaster said. "Even as the stock market sees a dip across the board, White Fang representatives maintain their position that there will be no resuming work until they are met at an official negotiating settlement. A list of corporations considered to have unsafe work conditions and unacceptable wages was made public, along with an official request for a conference moderated by the Atlesian Council."

After over half a year of laying low following their failure to make a breakthrough in Atlas City, the White Fang had finally made their move. They hadn't pulled any punches either: every major Dust mine and refinery in Mantle had been shut down and surrounded by pickets, along with over twenty manufacturing facilities. The blow had all of Atlas reeling. Dust was the lifeblood of the kingdom, and now that the flow had been thinned every sector of the country was feeling it. Actual shortages were a long way in the future, but already there was talk of rationing if the strike kept for more than four months. Atlas News Network was being very careful to maintain the appearance of being the moderate news outlet of the kingdom, noting rising consequences to the economy yet never outright condemning the strikes, but other networks were not being so diplomatic. Atlas Comcast was already calling for the declaration of martial law and the forceful dispersal of 'treasonous elements' by the army. The longer the strike continued, I thought, the uglier this was all going to get.

My sympathies here were squarely on the Faunus side, but for all that I didn't see a way for them to make any real gains out of this. The corporations wouldn't give an inch unless they were in real danger of taking a permanent loss, and it was pretty much a certainty the Council would step in before it came to that. I closed the window when the report changed to covering corporate press conferences, having already seen enough of those to know the essence of what I'd be listening to. Such and such company would not bow to extortionists and agitators, the ailing economy would hurt Faunus most of all, they should be grateful for having jobs at all. No mention of negotiations from anyone, because going to the table would be effectively admitting that our mighty captains of industry were doing something wrong. I got the impression that they were wary of the credibility the White Fang would win out of managing to force a settlement, even an unfavourable one. It'd set a precedent none of the big companies would be truly comfortable with. I polished off the rest of my breakfast and abandoned the dining room, seeing by the hour I was close to running late.

I had an actual fixed schedule, these days. It was an inevitable part of going to school. Pleiades Academy was the preparatory school it'd been agreed I would enrol in after turning twelve. High-brow place – Mother had refused to allow the more technically-inclined Pelagian School when I'd floated the notion, since it was open to all the riff-raff – but with a noted scholarship program for talented youths and enough of the upper crust's children in attendance that I'd be rubbing elbows with the kind of kids she wanted me to make connections with. I was still less than inclined to cooperate with that. Behaving like a good little Atlas boy was already enough of a pain when I had to do it with adults, the thought of playing that game with goddamn children had me wincing in advance. I'd whined to Weiss about it over Scroll call, but she'd pointedly replied by laying out the sum of her social engagements to me for the next two months. I was getting off lightly in comparison, even if I didn't like it. To be honest the thought of returning to school when I'd likely be bored senseless through the first few years of classes didn't exactly have me chomping at the bit, but it _would_ get me out of Marigold House. Having a few stolen hours now and then away from Mother's sharp eyes should be worth the boredom. And if it wasn't, well, I could always put in the work and graduate early.

Pleiades was wealthy enough an academy to have a landing strip, so it was the family airship that took me the school. The sheer waste that must be involved in that large a vehicle getting a single person downtown was mind-boggling, but then the Marigolds had been wealthy since before I was born and only gotten richer since. Though I'd been put in the Advanced Placement program, my day began with homeroom like everyone else. That initial free period for announcements and teacher counselling was probably my least favourite part of the day. There were four different classes in my grade, named after colours, and mine was Pale. There must have been some behind-the-scenes influence peddling involved, because by sheer 'coincidence' Pale class also happened to have another three corporate brats. Teal Vogel, second daughter of one of the foremost airship manufacturers in Atlas. Fern Laurent, heir to Laurent Imports – the company mostly shipped food in from Vale, as I understood it – and Slate Fischer, the youngest kid of Thaw Incorporated's CEO. Specialized in Dust-seeking expeditions, that last one, though they left the actual exploitation to other companies.

Fischer was the only one of the three that didn't have me considering strangling at least once a day, but for the better part of an hour every morning I found myself stuck entertaining them all. After the necessary announcements every morning our teacher left us to our devices, and that mostly involved socializing for twelve years olds. It'd taken me a while to understand exactly why they stuck to me like glue when I was being distantly polite at best, but once again Weiss had come to the rescue when I'd vented. Corporations in Atlas couldn't be classified as easily as declaring one was first-rate and another second-rate, since fortunes could be made in the span of a few months when the military decided to spend heavily in a particular area, but it could be said that there was a tangible difference between companies that were a household name and those that weren't. The SDC was the classic example of that. There were other Dust companies in Remnant and in Atlas, but to Atlesians the face of Dust was the Schnee logo and guarantee of quality. Their affiliate companies in other areas had competition, but when it came to Dust the SDC reigned supreme.

There were a few other corporations in the same general weight class, like the Floral Company that built and ran most the greenhouses keeping Atlas fed or Steelclad Solutions and their death grip on cybernetics and android platforms. None of the others were as outrageously wealthy as the SDC, whose influence could be felt all across Remnant, but inside Atlas they were petty kings of their specialty. Insomuch as any company could be called first-tier, they were those companies. Marigold Company had always been ambitious since my never-met father took over, but they'd always fallen way short of those crowns. After Blossom and the military contracts, the company had attracted attention. After Sepal, though? People were starting to think it might be the next corporation to make it into that rarefied circle, and now opportunists were rushing to strike up connections before it happened. Weiss was never quite that explicit, of course, and mainly relied on quoting her father. But she made it clear that, while the three other corporate kids might not be particularly fond of me as a person, they'd very likely been ordered by their parents to make nice with the only child of Marigold Company's CEO. I supposed I should be glad my role in the inception of Blossom and Sepal wasn't public knowledge. Bad as it was now, it was far from the worst it could be.

It was a little damning I had to rely on the guidance of my twelve-year-old friend to navigate my own school life, but Weiss had been dealing with this stuff since she could walk while I'd effectively been a hermit until now. Her advice was always useful, so I'd cope with the indignity.

Being in AP classes was the saving grace of the rest of my days. Usually it was the driven kids that ended up in those, with a high proportion of scholarship students. Most of those were talented human children from working-class families, but to my surprise there were a few Faunus as well. Pleiades Academy apparently prided itself on inclusiveness. On paper the Faunus kids were the same as any other students, but in reality they kept to their own table at lunch and everybody else gave them a wide berth even during class. I kept to myself as much as I could, but my first immersion in my age group made it clear keeping a low profile wasn't possible. That ship had sailed. Nearly every student was on Blossom, and every time the Marigold Company logo bloomed on a screen eyes turned to me. Now that Sepal was taking off as well I got complete strangers walking up to me to strike up conversations about the platform and how cool it was, and awesome my mother's company ran it. It would have been easy to get an ego if I'd not remained well aware I'd essentially stolen the concepts from the Old World. Regardless, any notion I'd had of being just another face in the crowd was swiftly rained on.

History was my favourite class, since the novelty of reading about Remnant's past had yet to fade. It still felt like reading a fantasy novel, even the drier bits. The teacher was noticeably younger than her colleagues and quite enthusiastic about her subject, though I had to repress a sigh when three weeks in she announced the largest assignment for the year would be a team project. Paired students – the pairs being of our own making - would make a presentation before the class about subject approved by the teacher, and even as she began talking about deadlines my eyes swept the class. I found Teal Vogel smiling at me, since she'd somehow managed to get placed in AP while vocally being of the opinion that 'studying was for, like, accountants'. If I had to hear another story about how her grandfather had been inspired to make his first airship design by watching a bird in flight, I was going put a revolver into my mouth and squeeze until the pain went away. I pretended not to get the hint and desperately looked for an alternative. There was a pack of girls in the back that were in an odd number, I noted. Five of them, and two pairs had already been made.

The leftover was a freckled redhead looking a little lost, and with the lack of other prospects visible I decided to roll the dice. She couldn't _possibly_ be more tedious than Vogel, right? I rose to my feet and made my way to the still-giggling pack before Vogel could catch up to me, clearing my throat when I got close. Five pairs of eyes turned to me.

"Hi," I said, forcing some cheer. "One of you is without a partner, right?"

"Oh my god, you're Henry Marigold right?" a black-haired girl with a button-nose gasped.

"That's me," I agreed, slightly less cheerful already. "So, you'd be…"

I trailed off, looking at the redhead with a raised eyebrow.

"Ilito- Aaami," she croaked awkwardly, "um, Ilia Amitola."

I felt for her, really. Hadn't exactly been the picture of smoothness at twelve the last time around, and this one hardly counted.

"Ilia," I hummed. "Good. Would you mind partnering up?"

"Me?" she said, sounding surprised.

God, it was a class project no a marriage proposal. _She's twelve, Henry_ , I reminded myself. _You were a patchwork of insecurities and awkwardness at twelve._

"I could partner up with you, I'm sure Sabetha won't mind," another girl said, this one a curly-haired blond.

From the look Button-Nose shot her, Sabetha did in fact mind. I needed to get this done before Vogel could barrel into the conversation and leave me no polite way to refuse, so I valiantly pressed on.

"Come on, Ilian," I said. "There's a list of suggested subjects on the class interface. We can check it out."

"It's Ilia," she reminded me, but didn't actually decline the implied partnerhood.

Eh, it'd do. I had my socially acceptable shield. I stepped back towards my desk terminal and Ilia followed after a heartbeat. I consciously forced myself to ignore the hushed whispers that started among the girls speculating about whether or not I had a crush on this complete stranger I'd dragooned into project-sharing. I half expected Teal Vogel to accost me at that point, but a quick look around told me she was actually chatting with another student. Huh, so she could take a hint. Sometimes. She met my gaze and I inclined my head in appreciation, to a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Giving me my space was the kind of behaviour I wanted to encourage. If she managed to learn that one lessons, she was already pulling ahead of the rest.

"So you're Henry Marigold," Ilia said, sounding adorably awkward.

Ah, I'd been sitting at the desk in silence for like ten seconds now. I could see how that would leave her at a bit of a loss.

"Henry's quite enough," I said. "Sit down. Anything you're interested in?"

A few touches had the suggested subject list projected – ah, Atlesian technology, how did I ever live without you – and she leaned forward to look through after claiming the seat to my right. She had blue-grey eyes, I saw, quite strikingly clear. She was looking a bit gangly at the moment in the Pleiades uniform, but she'd probably be a looker when she grew up. I dismissed the thought in time to catch her reply.

"Nothing really jumps out," she admitted.

"Yeah. It's a little heavy on the Atlesian pioneering spirit, isn't it?" I said with a smile.

The subjects varied from the earliest settlement of Solitas, the continent Atlas was on, to the era called the Unification – when all the fledgling towns and cities had been assembled under the Kingdom of Mantle. It then carefully skipped the Great War and went straight to the Rising Decades in their wake and the booms that came with them. It wasn't sweeping away the less glorious parts of Atlesian history so much as shining the spotlight on the good, but it was pretty telling even in a high-brow prep school we were getting this sort of stuff. Bad emotions attracted the Grimm, huh. Governments in the Old World had used propaganda a hundred times as blatant without half so good an excuse.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Ilia said.

"Not the most interesting stuff, though," I replied. "Well, it's not like we need to pick today. We still have a month. Tell you what, our next class is in two days. Let's each have an idea by then and settle on one then."

She bobbed her head in agreement, tiny gangly thing that she was. She hesitated after, and I decided to put her out of her misery.

"You don't need to keep me company if you don't want to," I smiled. "We've got a free fifteen minutes, and it looks like your friends are chatting."

That the talking girls occasionally shot us less-than-discreet look was something I decided to ignore for the moment. Ilia looked grateful, then somewhat guilty about that, but she made her way back to the pack before long. I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes and pondered how much it would cost me to talk one of the upperclassmen into buying me a pack of cigarettes.

XXX

Two months later the general strike was still going strong and the rhetoric was, as I had predicted, escalating accordingly. Forced deportation was now the remedy being thrown around by commentators on the news, never mind that it was an open breach of the Vytal Treaty. Ilia had turned out to be surprisingly decent company when she wasn't tripping over her own tongue, and as the shyness retreated an appreciably sharp sense of humour was coming out. She'd suggested the Anima Accords as our subject, to my surprise. It was the name colloquially given to the terms settled through half a dozen conferences in the wake of Faunus Rights Rebellion, when the Councils met with Faunus leadership and hashed out measures to ensure equals rights. It was an interesting bit of history, and more than a little relevant at the moment, so I jumped on board without hesitation. Ilia herself grew on me as we began meeting up in free periods to get the project going. She was a scholarship student, originally from Mantle, and lived in the Pleiades dorms I hadn't actually known existed. Made sense, though. Living in Atlas City wasn't cheap, and families that could afford it didn't get scholarships.

"It's how I met my friends," she explained. "They're all regular attendees, but from Mantle as well so they applied for the dormitories. I share a room with Julienne and Sabetha, and they've known the others since they were kids."

I genuinely could not remember which one was Julienne, no matter how much she reminded me. In all fairness, I wasn't trying all that hard.

"So what do your parents do?" I asked.

"Oh, you know," she said nervously. "Regular jobs. They're not really interesting."

 _Ah_ , I thought. I supposed she would be uncomfortable talking about her working-class family around the son of one of the richest women in Atlas. Better let that sleeping dog lie from now on. I brought up the holographic interface as a transparent way of changing the subject, our presentation outline and assorted sources already set up.

"We could probably get this done with an afternoon's work," I mused. "Get the text written, then time the speaking parts so we don't lose marks for going on too long."

The freckled girl hid a smirk, but not quickly enough I didn't notice.

"What?" I asked.

"You're just, uh, very well organized," she said.

Huh. I supposed I was starting out with the skills presentations like this were supposed to teach us, so in that sense I was ahead of the curve.

"Is that so horrible?" I said.

She laughed.

"No, it's just that you should hear-," she hesitated. "Nothing."

"Amitola, if you start gossiping with me you're not backing out halfway through," I told her amusedly.

She shrugged.

"Oh, he's so mysterious," she mocked in a falsetto voice. "So brooding."

"I don't brood," I said, mildly offended.

"Yeah, I get that now," she snorted. "It's just the way your face is."

"Now you're mocking me," I sighed.

"I would never," Ilia grinned, hand over heart.

It was probably some kind of mental defect, I mused, that had me systematically seeking out the company of people who made fun of me. Well, it was still better than the bumbling version of the girl I'd first met. She'd made me wince in sympathy every two minutes.

"Anyway," I firmly said, "tell me when you have a day free and you can come over for an afternoon to wrap this up."

She blinked.

"I don't know the way," Ilia reminded me.

"I'll come pick you up," I told her.

I could see on her face the exact moment where she remembered I was rich, and that was probably the moment I first started counting her a friend.


	13. Chapter 12

"You're an idiot," Weiss Schnee regally informed me.

The attempted image was hindered by the way she was leaning over a bowl of Vacuo-style curry she'd practically inhaled. For some reason she loved the stuff even if it turned her face pink and she had to drink half a jug of water afterwards. Atlesians, as a rule, had a delicate palate when it came to spices.

"I'm telling you, it's working," I said. "Every time one of them leaves me alone for a while I come to them for a talk afterwards, and they've picked up on the pattern. It cut down the amount of small talk by at least half."

"They're not herd animals, Henry," she said exasperatedly. "You can't corral them."

"I mean you _say_ that, but the evidence speaks otherwise," I mused.

I recognized that look on her face. If we'd been in my room instead of the dinner table, she'd have thrown something at my head. Which was unfair, really. I didn't have Aura that let me bounce that stuff off, and she had damn good aim.

"If you keep being an ass to everyone you'll be a social pariah when you come of age," she sighed. "Think of how that would make _me_ look, Marigold."

"Yes," I drawled. "That is always what goes through my mind when I make a decision – how will this affect Weiss' social agenda."

"As it should be," she agreed, airily ignoring the sarcasm. "As my best friend, your reputation will affect mine."

I smothered a grin. Now that her Father had decided to allow her visitation rights at Marigold House – though I'd yet to receive an invitation back to Schnee Manor, Jacques Schnee only ever forgave so much – she'd decided she could publicly call me that. As far as I could tell, everything she knew about what being 'best friends' meant was from vids and the Network. She'd already announced we would be having a coming-of-age road trip when we hit sixteen, and refusal had not been implied to be an option. It was surprisingly endearing, like a kid trying to wear an adult's clothes.

"So, are you ever going to tell me what's in the case?" I asked.

"So you _did_ notice," Weiss said, quite pleased.

Hard not do, when all afternoon she'd been dragging along a black case half as long as she was. Whatever was inside couldn't be all that heavy, because she was carrying it just fine, although I supposed the definition of 'heavy' changed when you had Aura.

"It's not exactly subtle," I noted. "So, what are we dealing with? I'm assuming not a telescope."

"A _telescope_ ," she repeated scathingly. "No, it is not. We'll need to adjourn outside for me to show you."

I raised an eyebrow. That sounded interesting. My own curry bowl was only half-eaten, but I wasn't feeling all that hungry anymore. Odds were we'd be getting into the taffy later anyway, as was basically ingrained habit by now. Marigold House was in the west of the city, though unlike Schnee Manor it was still within the walls. The estate was close to the tall stone outcropping Atlas City was nestled again, the natural defence that had made settlers come here in the first place. Over the years the slope had been carved into and now stood filled with the private estates of the rich built over artificial stone plateaus. Ours little private level was larger than most, with room for a large promenade as well as the family landing strip. That promenade was where I took Weiss, the two of us putting on coats before making our way out. Even spring in Atlas was worth a second layer. Atlesian summer didn't even seen most of Solitas thaw. We were old enough to head outside without needing permission, but also old enough to require a discreet chaperone. I saw one of the maids lingering in the distance, never quite close enough to hear whatever we'd be saying. Mother's people were never anything but consummate professionals.

Weiss knelt to open the case, revealing a rapier. No, I thought, it was more elaborate than that. There was a revolving chamber set inside the guard with coloured jewels set over it, and without her needing to open it I could guess Dust cartridges would be underneath. It was the weapon of a Huntress, not a fencer. It seemed a flimsy piece of steel to face the Grimm with, but I knew better than to underestimate the kind of punch heavily concentrated Dust could deliver. Likely this was a flamethrower and an ice gun as well as a sword, and there were even more exotic applications to be had. The fact that there was such a thing as Gravity Dust still blew my mind. That you could mine concentrated gravity crystals wasn't science, no matter what scientific terms that bullshit magic was coached in by researchers. Still, to be able to use the Dust cartridges at all she had to have learned a few new tricks.

"Your Semblance," I said. "You learned how to use it properly."

She fixed me with a dark look.

"Yes, pretty sword," I waved away. "The most beautiful. Glory to the Schnees. You can use your Glyphs reliably now?"

"I've finally reached sufficient mastery to be allowed to train with a Dust caster, yes," Weiss sighed.

I whistled, impressed.

"Have they got you started on summoning yet?" I asked.

It was a matter of public record what the Schnee family Semblance could do, though admittedly the details were vague on the limits and technicalities. It was pretty much expected that the family would boast about it, considering their bloodline carried one of the most versatile Semblances ever recorded. Weiss looked aside, embarrassed.

"I've not yet managed," she admitted. "Winter says I need to face truly challenging opponents before I'll be able to and I'm still too young."

It was somewhat horrifying I couldn't consider it a given that Jacques Schnee wouldn't drop his twelve-year-old daughter in a pit with man-eating monsters if it unlocked a prestigious talent to do so.

"It's already insane you got this good so young," I said.

"Winter-"she began.

"Is Winter," I interrupted. "People grow at different rates, peak at different heights. Comparisons are pointless."

"Standards aren't pointless, Henry," she chided me. "They are how we tell the talented from the worthless."

That sounded like another Jacques Schnee gem, and much as I wanted to reply the current state of affairs was too much like a glass house for me to start swinging. I grunted noncommittally instead.

"So," I said. "What can you do with it?"

Her smile at that lit up the evening. We hurried back inside half an hour later, and even if the gazebo was a little scorched Mother never said anything.

XXX

"You wouldn't believe how many people asked me what your home looks like," Ilia said.

I snorted. Afternoon recess was out, and she was sticking with me for the quarter hour. Apparently some of her friends were fighting and she was trying to avoid picking a side. As for me, well, the fourth-year student I'd approached had finally come through. In my hands were a pack of Mistrali Gold cigarettes and the shittiest lighter a factory had ever spat out. And they'd only cost me three times what the Network told me market price was! Each. It was goddamn highway robbery, but I'd chalk it up to paying for discretion. As long as the guy was making a tidy profit he was unlikely to gossip else he'd be cutting into his own pocket money. Sadly, I couldn't risk taking the pack back to Marigold House. I had to stash it here and hope no one dug deep enough into my locker to find it beneath the pile of winter clothes. I inhaled the tobacco and let out a stream of smoke, sighing in pleasure. Ah, cancer sticks. How I had missed you.

"I would," I said. "You may not have noticed, but I'm not exactly a social butterfly. Aside from Weiss there's not a lot of people who come over."

Coming to pick Ilia up in the Marigold family airship had apparently drawn more attention than I'd expected. I'd thought that doing it over the weekend would mean there'd be few people around, but I'd both underestimated the amount of students in the dorms and how quickly gossip spread in a place like this. Well, at least we were too young for people to be speculating about elopement. Were there tabloids in Remnant? I'd have to look into that.

"So I've heard," Ilia replied, dryly enough to empty a well.

I pulled at my smoke one last time and killed it against the wall before flicking the botch in a hole that was already filled with dozens of those. Upperclassmen came here to smoke, though different recess times meant I didn't usually have to share this little hidden corner with anyone. I was pretty sure the school knew about this place, since it got cleaned now and then, but there were no cameras and no adults watching. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"It's true, then," she added a moment later. "Your family is friends with the Schnees. I thought it might just be a rumour."

"Friends is a strong word," I snorted. "Mother does business with the SDC, and I've known Weiss since we were… six, or maybe seven? Can't remember. Young, anyway."

"What's she like?" Ilia asked.

I looked at her mildly.

"Private," I finally said.

She winced.

"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," I said, waving it away. "I know you didn't mean anything by it. She's just not someone that falls under the gossip category."

That killed the mood even after my attempt at diplomacy and we didn't stick around much longer. We split for classes and I ended up in AP Dust Studies, seated in the back letting the teacher buzz in the background about stuff I'd first read up on years ago. I ended up spending most of that afternoon on the Network, following the news. Four months into the Mantle strike, the Council had come out in an official press conference and outlined a plan for Dust rationing 'if it turned out to be a necessary measure'. Unsurprisingly, the military and research facility got the lion's share. Most the rest went to civilian infrastructure and only the dregs remained for the private sector, which was bad news for the economy. There were already predictions this could be the spark for a nation-wide recession. The article I found about how the lowered volume of exports was allowing local Dust companies in Mistral and Vale to be competitive again was the kind of data that would have the SDC foaming at the mouth. They'd spent over a decade rolling back protectionist measures in those kingdoms so they could take over a majority of the markets, sometimes operating at a loss just to put rivals out of business. Losing all that investment because of the White Fang was going to make them _furious_. The other shoe was going to drop, and soon.

It wasn't going to be pretty.

XXX

It didn't even take a full week before I was proved right. I wouldn't have been to ignore the blowback even if I wanted to: it was plastered on every goddamn news channel. The Faunus in Mantle were refusing to work, so the corporations had put their heads together and come out with a solution that was as ironic as it was vicious. They strike breakers they were bringing were Faunus as well, fresh off the airships from Vacuo and Mistral. While the White Fang was trying to force negotiations, the companies had scoured the other kingdoms for every desperate soul they could find and promised them jobs on arrival in Atlas. Private security had to escort in the workers, who I found out after a bit of research weren't even citizens. The companies had gone through the Council to arrange work permits, and their remaining in Atlas was contingent on their continued employment. I had not been this genuinely disgusted by the kingdom ever before, and that was only the beginning of the trouble. The White Fang was put on the defensive by the fact that the scabs they had to fight against were of their own species, and though the organizers tried to keep things calm and reach out the the new arrivals the whole situation was a powder keg.

It was only a matter of time until someone dropped a match.

The first riot was triggered by an SDC affiliate company announcing it was firing all employees that wouldn't come to work the following day, replacing them permanently with the permit workers. Jacques Schnee, ever careful, had made sure it was a factory and not a Dust refinery that tested the waters. There were bricks flying and brawls in the street before an hour had passed, a screaming mass of protesters trying to force entry into the factory. White Fang members in the crowd were trying to restore order, but they'd lost all control over the mob. Before the factory gates could be forced open, the Council intervened and my stomach dropped as I watched it all unfold on a terminal screen. Atlas sent in riot police, but only a few. The majority of the force that was sent in was androids with heavy plastic shields and built-in tasers. Printed on the side of models was their designation - _Atlesian Knight 160_. I knew its informal designation within the military: Crowd Control Model. I should know, I'd been one of the major players in designing the operating system. I watched one of the chassis discharge an arc of electricity in the stomach of a middle-aged man with fox ears and felt bile rising in my throat. The threat assessment suite that had told it to do that was my work and mine alone.

I excused myself from class with a croak and emptied my stomach in the closest bathroom.

My body wouldn't stop shivering, and when a teacher came to check on me I was glad I'd locked the door to the stall. I told them I'd just come down with indigestion and after wiping y mouth allowed myself to be guided to the infirmary. I was excused for the rest of the day after the nurse saw my hands wouldn't stop shaking and took the airship home with dead eyes. So this was what it felt like, to _collaborate_. I didn't even realize I was in my room until I was wrapped in my blankets. I wanted to weep, but there were no tears, and even in my own room I could not bring myself to scream. So I just stayed there, minutes passing. Part of me wanted to call Weiss, because who the fuck else would I call? But there was a voice in the back of my head reminding me the reason I had a hand in this was because I'd tried to play knight in shining armour for one of the richest girls in Remnant. It didn't seem to matter much then, that she was sad and lonely and so utterly underserving of what her family was putting her through. My Scroll ringed, but I didn't pick up. It was dark out when Mother came.

She entered my room without bothering with niceties, and I was almost thankful for that. She sat at my terminal and faced me calmly.

"One day," Bailey Marigold quietly said, "you will thank me for this."

My fist clenched. The urge to lash out was like venom in my mouth, itching to be spit out.

"How many dead?" I asked.

"The news-" she began.

"I didn't ask for what the _fucking news_ will say," I hissed. "How many dead?"

She frowned.

"Five," she replied. "Fourteen in critical condition. The Council is settling the medical bills as a gesture of appeasement. You will not speak to me in that tone again, Henry."

"Fear's a good stick," I said. "But it doesn't work when I remember the last time you smacked with it I became complicit in the deaths of almost twenty people."

"The Atlesian Knights did not start that riot," she said.

"The Council started that goddamn riot," I replied coldly. "Who the hell came up with this genius solution anyway? We're having trouble with the Faunus, so let's bring in _more_ Faunus."

"There will be no more trouble, because of this very solution you mock," Mother said. "What strikers do not fall in line will be replaced, and the new arrivals are in no position to agitate."

"I've always known that is was exploitation that kept the lights on in this house," I said. "This whole fucking country runs on it. But I thought, stupidly, that there was a limit even for you. That you'd draw the line at slavery with bells on it, forced with blood."

"This… was not how I would have preferred the situation be resolved," she admitted tiredly. "But the hardliners would not be moved, and negotiation was opening the door to being leveraged again down the line."

"Tell me none of our factories were part of this," I said. " _Please_."

Her lips thinned.

"We have not hired permit workers," she said, and that was a damning admission in and of itself.

She wouldn't need to, I thought. Someone else just needed bite the bullet and make clear it was an option, then she could use the threat without any of the bad reputation that'd come with actually going through with it. I could have known already if Marigold Company was involved. Most its infrastructure was in Atlas City, but it did have circuit assembly lines in Mantle. I hadn't checked, though. Because deep down I didn't want to know for sure. It'd been cowardice, the same sort of ugly surrender that had people looking away from someone being drunk and socially unacceptable on public transport. Because if you pretended it wasn't happening, you didn't have to feel you were part of it.

"How many employees?" I asked.

"One factory," she said. "Less than a hundred employees. Some have already contacted management to signal they are willing to return to work."

They were actually going to get away with it, I thought. All of them. Almost the entire working class of a major city had stood up, and they were just going to be kicked back down. I felt like throwing up again.

"They get the wages they asked for," I said. "All of them."

"Being the first to break ranks would have dire consequences," Mother said flatly. "To say nothing of the displeasure of our shareholders."

"Take it out of my percentage of the Sepal profits," I said quietly. "Make the raises secret, I don't care. But it happens, or I swear I will never make another thing for this company so long as I live."

She stayed silent for a long moment, studying me. Whatever saw there must have convinced her I was serious.

"This is what it means, to be powerful," Bailey Marigold said. "Making decisions at the expense of others to protect your own. You have a gentle nature, and so grieve the necessity if you must. But never forget that the only choice is between being the hungry or the fed. Guilt is the privilege of those with full bellies."

"That's an excuse," I said. "It doesn't have to be like this. You don't have to bury people to prosper, and I think you know that already. This isn't the best way. It's just the _easiest_ , and at some point it's going to stop being even that."

Sharp fury flared in her eyes. She was not used to being talked to this way, not by me.

"They will have their raises in six months, applied retroactively from the moment they return to work," she said. "Do not throw away your victory out of spite, Henry. My patience is not endless."

"It'll have to stretch a little further," I said. "I'm going."

Her brow creased.

"Where?" she asked.

"To Mantle," I replied. "You want me to have a look at what it means, to be powerful? I'm going to see the graves of the people I helped kill. That is the _least_ of what I owe."

She argued. I'd expected her to. But three days later Pleiades Academy was informed I'd fallen sick and I was on an airship to Mantle.


	14. Chapter 13

Mantle was to the south of Atlas City, closer to the coast though well shy of the waters – no one wanted to deal with the kind of creatures that dwelled in the sea unless they had to. It was in the central part of the region called the Hesperid Plateaus, built atop a massive mesa with plunging cliffs. Early Atlas settlements had always been built in the heights like this: harsh temperatures and difficult access harmed the Grimm as well as humans, after all. Mantle had grow as the most powerful and populous of those early settlements in large part because of the large size of the mesa's flat top and the fragility of the stone there. Shallow tunnels had been one of the first structures and the promise of protection had drawn survivors from every failed settlement on the continent. By the time the first king of Mantle crowned himself, half the mesa's top was already occupied and the tunnels were only getting deeper. The wars that unified Solitas as the Kingdom of Mantle after that were long, but surprisingly humane. Unlike Anima and Sanus, Solitas had never been bountiful enough to allow for large populations to settle. The leaders on every side of those wars knew that a single massacre could break an entire region for decades, and so battles and sieges almost always ended in surrender after a clear advantage was gained by one side.

The only stickler had been a loose confederacy of towns in the mountains to the north, and the Valian Alliance had barricaded themselves behind passes too costly to take for over twenty years even after the rest of the continent all fell behind Mantle. It was hunger that ultimately ended them, not force of arms. After some disastrous accident wiped the food stocks of a pair of the times, they surrendered in exchange for aid by Mantle. From then on the kingdom had a footfall in the mountains, and it was only a matter of time until the rest of the Valian Alliance was forced into the fold. And in the wake of that, the kingdom thrived and the city grew. Vale was the largest and most populous of the cities in Remnant when the Great War started, but Mantle was by far the richest. The kinds and queens of Mantle resided in a massive palace, the city itself surrounded by no less than four sets of walls protected by some of the most sophisticated defences in Remnant. The simple fact that some of those walls had kept Dust artillery as permanent defences was telling: cannons weren't unheard of in Remnant, but it was a massive expense to keep them stocked in Dust shells year-round.

That'd been the golden era of Mantle power, in a lot of ways. When the first blood of the Great War was spilled on Sanus, the kingdom had the largest and best-equipped of all armies in Remnant. Considering the population of Vale had been five time the size of Mantle, that was mind-boggling. Even when the Great War began in earnest and the King of Vale began conscripting citizens, Valean numbers failed to tip the balance. History books made much of Mantle's technological advantage, but the truth was somewhat more brutal. There'd been only one nation in Remnant that could afford to have the majority of its infantry wielding Dust rifles and keep those guns stocked with ammunition, and that'd been Mantle. In the early stages of the Great War, it'd been a common tale for Vale soldiers to able to shoot only a handful of volleys before charging enemy positions with swords. Even when Mantle was defeated, enemy casualties were brutal. It was only when Vacuo entered the war on Vale's side and Mistral began collapsing from the inside that Mantle was put on the ropes. Their supply train had to span the entire coasts of the largest continent, and do so under constant Grimm pressure. When the King of Vale put his kingdom's number to work by opening half a dozen simultaneous offensive, the great war machine of Mantle finally began to collapse.

The city had never quite recovered from that, I mused as I watched through the airship window. The founding of Atlas Academy and the city that sprouted around it had just been the final blow to an already ailing power, made official when the kings of Atlas moved their main residence to the Atlas City and changed the very name of the kingdom in an effort to shed off a now-humiliating past. The famous Winter Palace, whose sprawling silhouette I could see even this far out, was the only part of Mantle that didn't look like it was coated in grime. The northern part of the city, near the old seat of Atlesian royalty, was near-empty. Flowing south from it, down the repeating sets of walls, the city revealed itself in tiers. The ring where research facilities had ones stood had been turned into a mess of offices and homes for the city's remaining administrators but the rest was only two things: slums and factories. Cheap pre-made habitats falling apart surrounded tall chimneys from which Dust smoke stained the sky, impurities form the refining process being burned away. I could taste the hopelessness of that place from a mile above in the sky.

"Sir, we'll be landing soon," a man's voice interrupted me.

I twitched, coming back to the here and now. The man in the black suit and tie who'd spoken to me was the head of the private security Mother had insisted I take with me. Under the suit jacket I could see the shape of a revolver holstered, and I wasn't ashamed to admit it made me feel safer to have the dozen professionals along with me. I'd continued to follow the news, and the city was eating itself alive. The White Fang had lost all control over the strikes, incapable of dealing with both mass defections of strikers returning to work and another segment of their people who'd found they liked the taste of rioting.

"Thank you," I replied.

As part of the compromise that got me on this airship, I'd had to agree that I wouldn't spend the night in Mantle and that I'd be surrounded by security at all times. I was 'allowed' to visit the graves of the people my work had killed, and even the Marigold factory that'd gone on strike. The moment that was done, back on the airship I went. The flight from Atlas City had left at six in the morning and it was past noon already, and that's been achieved only because of perfect weather conditions. Civilian-grade airships could only go so fast, even those with cutting edge Dust engines. The descent was smooth, and we landed on a private corporate airstrip. Not even one for cargo, I noted when I saw the logos of other companies on docked ships. This must have been where company officials landed when they came on business. The head of my security detail – Mister Palatin, I was pretty sure his name was – insisted on briefing me one last time before we stepped out. I stood through a reminder that I was not to wander off, approach strangers and at no point disobey any instruction he gave me. I forced myself not to look irritated, since he was only out so keep my hide whole, and followed him down the ramp. The rest of the detail fanned out around us and I breathed in Mantle air for the first time.

"I expected it to be worse," I noted. "I can barely smell the Dust residue."

"There's air scrubbers in this part of the city," Palatin told me.

I grimaced.

"But not the other rings?" I guessed.

He didn't reply, which was answer enough. A handful of cars were awaiting us, black sleek things with drivers already behind the wheel. I was ushered into one of them, the others moving in front and behind. It wasn't a long ride to the outer city, not even an hour. I spent most of it looking out through a shaded window, watching the city grow dirtier every few minutes like this was a goddamn cartoon. Except it wasn't, people _lived_ there. We passed through a street where houses and shops were closed down, more than a few of them wrecked by rioters. It was there I began to notice the graffiti. The mark of the White Fang, a white beast head in a circle, was the what I glimpsed most often. But there were also spray painted calls for overthrowing the Council, and a handful of more worrying red variations on the White Fang symbol. Three red claw marks with a crimson beast head over them. That reeked of a splintering between moderates and radicals, and it bode ill for the city in years to come. The car convoy slowed in front of the funerary facility the victims of the riot had been laid to rest at, or their ashes anyway.

I'd assumed it would be a graveyard, but after being told otherwise it'd made sense that most people on Remnant were incinerated instead. There was already too little room in most cities, a graveyard would be considered a luxury. Only the rich were buried, in Atlas. The rest were cremated and their ashes put in urns if they could afford it, in impersonal government-run facilities where the resting places of the dead were essentially glorified metal drawers. The security left the cars ahead of me and checked the surroundings before I was allowed to leave the car. There was a receptionist at the desk inside, and I glanced around while Palatin spoke with her. The place reminded me of the military facility where I'd met General Ironwood twice, all metal and plastic. A door opened for us to the side and I was guided into a corridor where both walls were filled with small plaques bearing names. There were metal benches at regular intervals, and only two people I could see. My Scroll had the names I'd come to see, and I linked to the local network to be told where the urns were kept. The first was a middle-aged man's, Bargon Persian. Cat Faunus, the Scroll said. No family. Died of a brick in the back of the neck, not the Atlesian Knights.

I stood before the plaque bearing the words 'B. Persian' with his dates of birth and death in silence, waiting for something to be felt. Guilt? That had yet to go away, but watching a bit of metal with a name on it wasn't making it any better or worse. I'd built this up as some kind of pilgrimage in my head, but now that I was here all I felt was… tired. I'd known nothing about this man, or any of the others. Our lives had never intersected. I'd just helped make a cog in the machine that killed him, sure as if someone had pulled a trigger. I went to see all four other dead, but did not linger. There was nothing to be found in this place except my reflection on metal. It'd been an empty gesture on my part from the start, to come in my comfortable airship with a fucking security detail to indulge in a fantasy of amends making any of this better. It was almost embarrassing, I thought, that after I'd argued so harshly to come here I wouldn't even stay an hour. We left the funerary facility without my having spoken a word to anyone. I breathed the foul air of outer city and tightened my jacket around my body.

"To the factory, Mr Marigold?" Palatin asked.

I was debating an answer when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Three people standing over a fourth. One of them was an older man, and he was screaming about his shop being wrecked. It was a Faunus on the ground, I saw, and they were kicking her down ever time she tried to rise or scrabble away.

"Break that up," I told the Palatin.

"Sir-" he began.

"There's twelve of you," I said. "I'm not going anywhere. Do it, and have someone call emergency services too. She looks like she'd bleeding."

His lips thinned in displeasure, but he didn't argue any further. Four of the private security crossed the street and there was a quick conversation followed by one of the humans drawing back his hand and getting tasered in the stomach. The others backed away hurriedly.

"HEY," someone yelled. "What do you people think you're doing?"

A man was coming out of the funerary facility behind us and I looked back. Horns on his head, though I didn't recognize what kind. He hadn't shaved in a while, and he was moving strangely. Drunk? Hard to tell at a distance. His coat was threadbare, good make but had been worn for too long.

"There's no need to worry," I said as the detail immediately stepped between me and the stranger. "We're already calling the authorities."

"So she can be put in a cell, you prick?" the man hollered, and came closer.

"Sir, step back," Palatin warned him. "We are armed."

"Fuck you, human," the man hissed. "You don't tell me what to do."

"We're not trying to get her imprisoned," I said. "She's bleeding, and I think she needs-"

The man stepped forward again. Palatin took out his taser and aimed. The Faunus' coat moved, and I saw the glint of something metallic in his belt. Not a gun, it was – shit, it was canister.

"DON'T," I screamed, not sure to who, but it was too late.

Electricity flared, blinding light followed and I felt heat lick at my face before it all went dark.

XXX

I woke up in a bed, feeling like my face was on fire. People were talking in soft voices but I couldn't make out the words. I tried to move my arm but found I couldn't, something was restraining it. The pitch of the voices mounted and I felt something go into my arm. Cold. It went dark again.

XXX

I woke again, in a well-lit room. I was floating and my eyes wouldn't stop blinking. I moved my fingers and let out a rasp, my throat feeling parched.

"Doctor, he's awake," a man's voice said.

Oh, I was in a bed. I tried to get up from the pillows but my muscles wouldn't move. There was something pinned into my arm and I saw wires going into my skin.

"Fuck," I croaked out.

"Don't move, Mr Marigold," a soothing voice said. "You're on medication at the moment, but too much stirring will be painful."

The person talking was on my left, but I couldn't see them. Why couldn't I see them? My neck slowly moved and I found a white-haired woman looking at me. I thought of Weiss, for a moment, and almost giggled. Shit, what was I _on_?

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Here, drink," the doctor said, pressing a cup against my lips.

Water, and it'd never tasted better. I drank in small gulps until she took the cup away.

"You're at the Royal Mantle Hospital, son," she said. "You were in an accident."

Someone snorted.

"That's not what the news are saying," a man said.

"That will be all, nurse," the doctor said in a mild tone.

I frowned.

"There was a man, with a canister," I said.

"Red Dust," the doctor said. "Improperly sealed. It exploded when the current touched it."

I could only see half her face, even at this angle. Why couldn't I… I reached for my face, but she caught my wrist.

"That's not a good idea," she gravely said.

I blinked. Only one eye moved.

"The man was too far," I said, hesitating. "It couldn't have…"

"There was shrapnel," the woman told me. "You were hit by a fragment. Luckily, one of your security was in the way so it was only a limited impact."

"My eye," I murmured. "I can't move it at all."

I felt panic flood my veins, and I struggled against the binding at my side. The doctor cursed under her breath and hurried on the other side of the bed, fiddling with something. Cold again, in my veins. The dark welcomed me like an old friend.

XXX

I woke up twice more and was sent back under to stop a panic attack before I managed not to fall into another. There was a nurse permanently at my side to keep me under observation just in case. No one would tell me much aside from the fact that I was still at Royal Mantle and that it'd been five days since the accident. I'd apparently been in surgery for two days before first waking up, to get the shrapnel out of… I grit my teeth. Out of my eye. My left eye. It'd been shredded, and I was damned lucky it'd glanced off a guard's shoulder before hitting me otherwise it might have gone straight into my brain. There was a patch over my face to prevent me touching the healing wound, but it'd been made clear to me that there was no salvaging the eye. It was gone for good. I spent hours on my back, thinking about that. The handful of moment before the explosion were seared into my mind, and they wouldn't stop playing out over and over. Mother visited once, to tell me I'd be brought to a private facility in Atlas City as soon as I was cleared to be moved. She didn't fuss over me, but she spent an afternoon by my side without taking a single call. That was about as motherly as I could expect her to be, I supposed, but it still left a bitter taste in the mouth.

I wasn't allowed to take calls that might agitate me, but I was told that Weiss tried to reach me several times on my personal number. I asked the staff to inform her I might be moved back to the city soon, and that she'd be able to visit me there. The day that followed, I got my second visit. Not anyone I'd expected, but I hazarded a guess when I heard the people outside my room stammer and give in. General James Ironwood strode into my room with a grim look on his face, and to my surprise he had company. Winter Schnee, in full Atlas Academy uniform, was only a step behind. Her face went blank when she looked at me.

"General, Winter," I said. "I'd stand, but…"

Ironwood didn't even bother to fake a smile, and Winter's face might as well have been made of porcelain.

"May I sit?" he asked.

"Go ahead," I shrugged. "I'm bored out of my mind, the company is welcome."

I'd almost said 'any company', but taking out my mood on one of the most powerful men in Atlas without even knowing why he'd come struck me as a bad idea. I was inclined to think this was a somewhat social call, if Winter was here. And speaking of her… Ah, still looking like a creepy mannequin version of herself. Lovely.

"I'm told you've been kept in the dark about what's happening outside," the general said.

"Apparently agitating me is a bad idea," I said. "Somehow they're not getting that my imagination can provide a decent enough shitstorm to worry about."

"The optics aren't good," Ironwood soberly agreed.

Winter stirred.

"Sir, I'm not sure it's appropriate to-" she began.

"Enough, Winter," he sharply said. "He'll learn the moment they give him back his Scroll regardless."

"Well that's ominous," I commented. "As if warranting a visit from a member of the General Board wasn't already worth a flinch."

General Ironwood began to talk, and flinch I did.


	15. Chapter 14

"The Faunus was a thief," Ironwood said.

I winced. Just started, and right out the gate it was bad.

"The Dust he carried was a faulty canister marked for disposal at his workplace," the general continued. "It was never reported missing. Investigation turned up the man pawned them on the black market regularly."

"What was he doing at the funerary facility?" I asked.

"Records indicate his sister's ashes are kept inside," Ironwood said. "Mine worker, died of medical complications. Toxicology report showed he was likely inebriated during the incident. No known White Fang affiliation, but that has not stopped speculation."

"That's a propaganda piece offered up in a neat little fruit basket, bow on it and everything," I bit out. "Shit. How bad's the blowback?"

I could feel Winter's eyes on me, but did not meet her gaze. I wasn't even sure why she was here, to be honest.

"Initial coverage was harsh," Ironwood began, and I frowned. "But once your identity was discovered the networks began to dig further."

Oh fucking hell. That was not going to unfold nicely for anyone.

"Questions were asked as to why you were in Mantle at all, much less at a funerary facility," the general told me. "There was a leak. It's now open knowledge you were part of Project Chivalry."

"Never touched that," I replied automatically. "I was only involved in Toybox."

"That is not the version being offered to the public," Ironwood sighed. "The Council ran damage control but it was too late for full censorship. There were more leaks afterwards, about your role in making Bloom and Sepal. You're a celebrity now, son. And a symbol."

He didn't need to tell me how this had all been spun for me to venture an educated guess. Twelve-year old kid paying respects to the dead, 'assaulted' by a drunken Faunus thief? There would have been accusations of the White Fang trying to murder the next generation of Atlas before the first day was done. Vindication for every asshole on Comcast who'd been ranting about Faunus terrorism. Fuck. There was no possible way any of this would disappear quietly. At best I could hope it'd fade away after a few years, but at the moment I was in the national spotlight at arguably the worse time possible.

"I'm glad you told me," I admitted. "Would have been a nasty surprise coming out. But I'm also at a loss as to why you're the one breaking the news to me, sir. You must have people for this."

"You built something for the good of Atlas," Ironwood said, and he sounded genuine. "And it resulted in dead civilians. That you came here to look at the consequences afterwards is a mark of character, Henry. That should not go unacknowledged."

"Coming here was an ego trip," I replied tiredly. "And it cost me both an eye and the quiet life. Not a lesson I'm going to forget."

I bit my tongue afterwards, uncomfortable at having been this honest in front of stranger and my closest friend's sister – whose presence I had forgotten until she shuffled in her chair.

"You have hard months ahead of you," Ironwood said. "It will get vicious, son. It always does. But I want you to remember that the boy who went to visit that facility did so because he believed in doing the right thing. Don't let them take that from you."

I kept my mouth shut. Telling him he knew absolutely nothing about me and it was presumptuous to assume otherwise would have come out otherwise, whether I wanted it to or not. The general rose, after a moment of silence.

"One last thing," he said. "When your Scroll is returned to you, you will find schematics on the the device. For a prosthetic eye."

My fingers clenched.

"The finest we currently have," Ironwood said. "One will be made available to you, if you want it."

He nodded at me gravely, and glanced at Winter.

"Don't stay too long," he told her, and left.

The door closed behind us and in silence I watched Winter Schnee. She'd grown since I last saw her. Taller, yes, but it was her face that drew my attention. It'd grown sharper, her eyes more guarded. She was the hint of the woman she was going to grow into, and that woman was going to be stunningly beautiful. Regal more than austere, I thought. Her unblinking gaze and blank expression were beginning to make me uncomfortable.

"Let's get on with it," I said. "You're about to tell me to distance myself from Weiss so she's not dragged into this. Message heard. Anything else?"

She looked uncomfortable at that.

"I come in part on her behalf," she said. "Father would not let her come here."

"With reason," I said.

She inclined her head in agreement.

"I owe you an apology," she said, and looked away.

Well. Huh. That was not how I had seen that going at all.

"If you truly are the prodigy they say, there was never a need for you to cling to my family's coattails," she said. "I did you injustice in assuming as much."

"You had precedent to believe otherwise," I conceded. "And I've yanked your chain for my own entertainment on occasion. Didn't help."

"Do not misunderstand me," she said, rallying into haughtiness. "I have not grown fonder of you. You are rude, arrogant and full of unsavoury habits."

"Well, it was nice while it lasted," I mused. "Putting the short in 'short and sweet', are we?"

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth. "Exactly like this."

She breathed out loudly, and calmed herself. She no longer looked like a blank mask, and even though the emotion she displayed was irritation at my general existence I'd gladly take that over the creepy doll imitation.

"My mother used to tell me a story about Grandfather, when I was a child," she said. "Of how he once turned back an entire expedition to secure medical assistance for one of his colleagues. Not an explorer, not a specialist. A porter. A man carrying luggage."

I raised an eyebrow, but elected not to interrupt.

"I will not tell Weiss to cut ties with you," she finally said. "We are Schnees. We do not leave companions behind."

Proud as she sounded, I was touched enough by the gesture I didn't make sport of her for it. I just inclined my head, throat a little choked up.

"Prove deserving of that trust, Henry Marigold," she ordered me, and rose to her feet.

Typical of Winter, she didn't bother with goodbyes before leaving. It was only half an hour later, when she was long gone, that I realized that at no point in that conversation had she _actually_ apologized.

It was the first real laugh I'd had since the accident.

XXX

It was two more days before I was cleared to move. I'd finally gotten my Scroll back, and steeled myself before taking a look at the Network. It was as about as bad as I'd feared. It wasn't front page news anymore, so to speak, but my name was still thrown around quite a bit during debates as proof of 'Faunus savagery'. Marigold Company has yet to release a statement, and neither had my mother save for an announcement that my condition was stable and I was recovering. Thanks, Mother. Always the tender touch with her. I ended up closing the screen after running into a particular article, where I found I'd apparently gained a nickname for my involvement in Blossom and Sepal. _The Wizard of Atlas_ , the columnist called me. I winced. That was horribly cheesy, but I suspected it was the kind of cheesy that'd stick around. Goddamnit, that was going to follow me around for years wasn't it? It was too horrid a nickname not to spread. Wearing real clothes instead of hospital rags was a relief, even if the patch over my eye also covered half that side of my face with it. I was under strict instructions not to touch it, no matter how much it itched. And it did, like I had ants crawling over an eye that no longer existed.

My transportation would arrive around noon, so I still had about an hour to kill before needing to leave the hospital. The nurse changed when the early morning shift ended, and was replaced by an amusingly burly man in scrubs. I didn't know nurses could be that massive, or that bearded. I paused. _Were_ nurses allowed beards? Was that sanitary? I discretely glanced at the man and found him watching me.

"You're not a nurse are you," I said, and my blood ran cold.

There were people outside, I thought. If I screamed they'd come. Discretely I began bringing up the emergency number on my Scroll.

"That won't be necessary," the man said. "I'm just here to talk."

He had golden eyes, I noted. That didn't make it a certitude – hell, my own hair was nearly grey so evidently Remnant varied a little wildly when it came to colouration – but given that he'd come secretly…

"You're Faunus," I breathed out.

"I do not mean you harm," he said.

There were only so many reasons a Faunus would seek me out in a hospital room on the very day I was going to return to Atlas City.

"You're White Fang," I frowned.

"We tried to arrange a meeting the straightforward way," the man said. "Your mother called security on our representatives."

Yeah, that did sound like her. So now I was getting a secret visit from the Fang before I could be released into the world and the press feeding frenzy that would follow. I was, I thought, being gauged. Calmly, I set down my Scroll on the side table.

"Well, here you are," I said. "And you're not exactly inconspicuous, so I'm guessing you're here because you're fairly high up in the pecking order."

He rumbled out a quiet laugh. Yeah, definitely Faunus. I was pretty sure humans couldn't quite make that noise.

"You could say that," he said. "I can speak for the Fang."

He cleared his throat.

"We had nothing to do with this," he said. "You'll hear otherwise on the news, so we wanted to set the record straight."

"I've been told as much," I said. "I have no reason to believe otherwise. Your organization has tried to avoid violence, and if you wanted to start a knife fight with the corporations there's better targets than me."

The Schnees for one, much as the thought of Weiss coming in anyone's crosshairs disquieted me. The large man watched me closely, then nodded.

"The coming months will decide the face of our movement for decades," he told me gravely. "The strike has failed. There are calls for a harder line, and they are getting louder."

That was nothing anyone couldn't guess by looking at the graffiti in the outer city.

"I'm not sure," I said, "why you're telling me that."

Golden eyes pinned me, and I felt a shiver of something like fear. God, he was huge. Even if he didn't have Aura, he could probably pulp my neck with muscle strength alone.

"Because you went to that funerary home," he said. "Think on that, when the reporters come speak to you."

He moved out of the room with unhurried grace of a large cat, no one noticing anything amiss as he did. I reached for my Scroll, but after a moment set it down. Within five minutes a nurse was coming, apologizing for having been delayed by a patient. For all that the man had been calm, I thought, this was as much a warning as it was a friendly talk. God, I just wanted to go home.

But I knew the mess would be waiting for me there, and that left a bad taste in the mouth.

XXX

I'd honestly not bothered to consider school in any of this, which didn't turn out to be too much of a mistake. Losing an eye was apparently considered a valid reason for medical leave, so all the assignments I'd miss even during my recovery would be waived. Nice of them. After a week of further observation at a private clinic I was given leave to return to Marigold House as long as I returned for daily check ups, and at that point I was considered fair game for the horde of locusts. Mother sat me down the day before my release to speak on the matter, with only the two of us in the room.

"We will need to release an official statement," she said. "And to have your signature on it."

"I'll want to read it first," I told her.

She seemed vaguely amused.

"I'd anticipated as much," she said. "That aside, we've had multiple requests to interview you."

I was a fucking twelve-year-old who got shrapnel in the eye. You'd think they would give me a little more than two weeks out of sheer decency. Ah, there was the mistake. Assuming the press had that.

"Who?" I asked.

"The major outlets," she said. "ANN, AON, Comcast. A handful of radio stations as well."

"I don't suppose declining everything is an option?" I tried.

She did not seem particularly amused. Ah well. It'd been worth a shot.

"Atlas News Network, then," I said. "One should be enough."

"We are shareholders in Atlas Comcast," she reminded me. "Refusing an interview will not be well received."

"If you trying forcing me to speak to those people, I'll tell them exactly what I think of their 'coverage' on live vid," I told her frankly.

Her brow creased.

"Exclusive to ANN, then," she said. "They will be willing to pay for such an arrangement."

"Glad we're making lien off of this," I told her with a hard smile.

"Don't be childish," Mother chided. "I am told General Ironwood extended an offer of prosthetic to you."

I cleared my throat and looked aside.

"Haven't decided yet," I said.

The schematics were fascinating. I'd admit that much. And they implied I'd be recovering my full vision. Having to go to the bathroom with only one eye had taught me the virtues of depth perception, never as valued as it should be until you lost it. But the prosthetic would show. The pupil was an optic camera, and up close it would look slightly… off. Uncanny Valley effect in full blown, made worse by how discreet it was at a distance. It would also need to be put in through surgery, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to going back under the scalpel.

"Do so soon," Mother said. "I do not believe the offer will remain on the table forever, and nothing quite so sophisticated will be available to us if you decide you'd like one in a few months."

Bailey Marigold wasn't exactly a coddler. The interview with ANN was scheduled for a week after my return to Marigold House, and in deference to my status as a minor we were provided a list of the subjects that would be broached. Moderate stuff all around, and though Sepal and Blossom were brought up there was no hint of anything about Project Chivalry. Well, it wasn't like the channel was subtle about being the mouthpiece of the General Board. They wouldn't want any of their dirty laundry aired out more than it already was. The only highlight of that miserable week of waiting for the shoe to drop was that Weiss was finally able to visit me. She stormed in with her usual aplomb, and took me out for a walk onto the promenade outside the house. The cheer on her face fell off as we passed the first gazebo and got out of sight of the staff, and I was about to tease her for being cold even with a coat on when I realized the weather had nothing to do with why she was trembling.

"Weiss," I said. "It's-"

She crushed me in an embrace that was more death grip than hug. We were about the same height, now, so her chin rested on my shoulder even as she shivered.

"You could have _died_ ," she whispered.

I breathed out. Part of me wanted to reply with something flippant, brush it all off as I had so far, but out here it was just the two of us. My fingers tightened around her sides and I let out a shuddering breath.

"I could have died," I agreed softly.

It still hit me now and then, how close a stupid fucking accident and a piece of metal no larger than my thumb had come to killing me. Just thinking about it was making my hand shake, and I breathed in and out slowly so it wouldn't get worse.

"I was so scared, when I heard you were in surgery," she admitted.

It was easier like this, I thought. Neither of us had to look at the other's face. Being raised in Atlas had made me uncomfortable with emotional displays.

"I'm scared now," I admitted softly. "And I don't know what I'm going to do."

I don't know how long we just stood there in silence, hearing each other's breathing, but it felt both too long and too short. When we both got self-conscious we moved towards a bench instead, and sat down close enough we could feel the other without owning up to the fact that was what we were doing. I passed a hand through my hair and shivered again. I would have preferred if the cold was responsible for it.

"I keep thinking about it," I told her. "There was a beat, Weiss, between the taser hitting and the Dust blowing up. I knew it was coming."

She listened without speaking, and I could not be thankful enough for that.

"That's the part I can't deal with," I said. "I knew it was coming but I couldn't _do_ anything. So I just stood there and lost an eye."

I clenched my teeth.

"It's always worse, isn't?" Weiss softly said. "When you can't do anything about it."

We were talking about different things, I knew. But there was a root truth to both. There was nothing that cut quite as deep as powerlessness, and I'd had my face shoved into mine. And again, when the man from the White Fang came. He'd not come to hurt me, I knew. But if he had, I would have been dead before anyone came into that room. I still clenched up thinking about that. How easy it would have been to kill me.

"Did you know the Council can conscript any Atlesian citizen with their Aura awakened, in state of emergency?" I asked.

"The Patriotic Service Act," Weiss nodded.

"There's always an expectation," I said. "If you have that kind of power, you're supposed to use it for Atlas. Even if you don't agree with what Atlas does."

"It need not concern you," she reminded me. "You Aura is still dormant."

"If I'd had Aura," I murmured, "I'd still have two eyes. It's not like it's impossible to find a Huntsman to awaken it, if you're willing to pay enough. Mother wouldn't have refused. But I never asked, because it would be another tie to here. To this place. I thought I could avoid being involved at all."

"You can, Henry," she said. "You'll have better security, next time. They won't hurt you again."

"I'm not going to spend my life behind a guarded wall, Weiss," I said. "I refuse to be that person. But it was naïve of me, to think that I could sidestep all of this by keeping my head down. There's nowhere in Remnant that's really safe, is there?"

"I'm not sure what you're saying," Weiss admitted.

"I'm saying tonight I'll ask Mother to put out feelers to see if I can get my Aura awakened soon," I said. "Then I'm going to get an eye prosthetic. And then I'm going to learn enough I'm _never_ one heartbeat away from being snuffed out again."

The white-haired girl breathe in sharply.

"You wouldn't ask that, if you truly understood what Aura is," she said, rising to her feet. "It's not a small thing, awakening someone. It is… intimate. Not something that should be done by a stranger."

"I don't have a Huntress sister to ask," I reminded her.

"No," Weiss Schnee said. "But you have me. Stand up."

In the afternoon's dying light, she looked unearthly. Too pale and delicate to be real, but her pale blue eyes were coldly determined. I rose, and as I met her eyes she placed her hand on my shoulder. Her Aura flared, as if she'd been wreathed in pale moonlight. I felt it, and felt something rise in answer.

"For it is through honour we overcome transience," she whispered. "As was granted me I now grant you, the burden and the pride: to bring light into dark and hope to despair. Freed of contempt and born of dawn, I release your soul, and by my side call thee to glory."

The silence echoed loudly, as indigo shone alongside white and the sun fell in the distance.


End file.
